I'm Italian and I have to say that from my point of view it's America which declared an economic war to Europe: infact, you should consider all the protectionist laws in your country which penalize the free trade between US and EU.
Anyway, this is not the point; economical rivalry between US and Europe exists since 1776, so it's nothing new.
You fear of something that doesn't exists, a world's superpower called Europe: may be it could be true under an economic point of view and this is right, but under a MILITARY point of view...
It's ridiculous!
Europeans have just the military power to defend themselves and surely haven't any will to fight with anyone.
We have fought so much in the last 20 centuries: since the fall of the Roman Empire we have had invasions from everywhere, religion wars, crusades, civil wars, revolutions, independence wars, dynasty wars, plagues, oppression and "dulcis in fundo", two world wars, the holocaust, the superpowers' occupation of Europe and the Cold War.
I think it's enough, do you agree?
Thewre were only two wars on the american soil, the independence war in 1776 and the civil war in 1861-1865.
That's all.
Now you should study the european history of the last century before to say anything.
We have fought two world wars on our territories and, after every conflict, we had to rebuild completely our countries; european countries suffered for the cold war, the communism, the absence of freedom in the eastern part of the continent, a lot of economical crises caused by external factors (wars in Middle East, for example)...
Now you want to blame us because we don't want this to happens anymore: infact this is the true meaning of the european unification, to make war impossible in Europe and to grow up together, as friends, and not as enemies as it was for twenty centuries.
Now, if you think that this is a treat for US, well, we are very happy to be such a treat for you!
Really, we hope that every nation of Europe will be part of the EU one day, to realize the dream of a "wonderful and peaceful union from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains" (Charles de Gaulle, president of France in 1960)
And if want to be a superpower for the next 1,000 years and you want to have the power to destroy the world many and many times with your nuclear weapons as you have now, well, God bless you.
If you want to make a much more bigger superpower with Canada and Mexico, God bless you the same.
We don't care about this things.
We stopped to care about this in 1945.
We want to be in peace with anyone and we want to ensure richness and rights to the future generations of europeans.
Otherwise, I think you should follow our example: find your place in the world, live in peace and respect those countries which don't want to live according to the "american way of life".
Be sure that you'll have only benefits from this and no more 9/11s...