Too Early to Call U.S.-EU Trade Talks Doomed, Katainen Says
Too Early to Call U.S.-EU Trade Talks Doomed, EU's Katainen Says
(Bloomberg) -- Don’t give up on free-trade negotiations between the European Union and the U.S. before they’ve even started, a top EU official said.
“It’s too early to say that our trade discussions with the U.S. are doomed to failure,” European Commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday. “There are discussions going on at several levels, and I still see lots of light at the end of the tunnel -- we can end up having some sort of agreement with the United States on trade.”
European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom, who is waiting to get authority from EU governments to start the negotiations, said last month that a U.S.-EU trade accord could be reached before the end of this year. Her projection came even as the two sides dispute what exactly commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed on last July as a starting point to the trade talks.
The U.S. wants agriculture to be addressed in the negotiations, while the EU insists that the political pact reached in July to lower trans-Atlantic trade barriers is limited to industrial goods. The EU is seeking to show progress toward a deal in order to avoid a U.S. threat to hit European cars and auto parts with tariffs on national-security grounds.
Malmstrom said last week that “there is momentum” among EU governments toward giving the authorization to begin the trade talks “in the weeks ahead.” The U.S. has warned that if the EU doesn’t start negotiations soon, Washington could take punitive measures.
“So long as the EU leadership plays the delay game the more we will have to use leverage to realign the relationship,” U.S. Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland said in a February interview.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jones Hayden in Brussels at jhayden1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Fergal O'Brien at fobrien@bloomberg.net, Richard Bravo, Kevin Costelloe
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.