I think that this is somewhat due to different definitions of parsing what "economic espionage" means. As you say, it's old news that NSA and CIA have tried to

I think that this is somewhat due to different definitions of parsing what "economic espionage" means. As you say, it's old news that NSA and CIA have tried to figure out bargaining strength. CIA was doing that even before SIGINT became the easiest way to find that information out. And this Economist story http://www.economist.com/node/1842124 http://www.economist.com/node/1842124 from 2003 flat-out states that NSA detected Airbus bribing Saudi officials in the 90s, causing the Clinton Administration to intervene. The U.S. government has never made statements that they're not trying to negotiate trade deals and treaties that are in the interests of U.S. companies, and they find data of companies like Airbus/EADS and Petrobras useful in figuring out their (the USG's) own negotiating strategy, or in detecting our allies and partners "circumventing" trade rules to assist their own domestic industry, must like your LA Times article relates to. But that's not the same as exfiltrating such data directly from Airbus to Boeing, which is the kind of thing NSA claims they're not (and have not been) doing. It's interesting that Greenwald's story mentions a strategy document that argues for going in that direction (the China strategy in reverse?) but a strategy proposal is just that--a proposal.