Help Wanted for Europe’s Packed Trade Agenda

(Bloomberg) --

As European Commission President-designate Ursula von der Leyen prepares her leadership team, whoever gets the coveted trade portfolio will have a full plate. The successor to European Union Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom will start a five-year term in November with a to-do list stretching from the Americas to Australia. Here’s how the EU commercial agenda stacks up:

• The EU is bracing for a tit-for-tat tariff fight with the U.S. on disputed aid to aircraft makers Airbus and Boeing, while also seeking to keep at bay a threat of American duties on imported cars.
• The main free-trade agreements that the EU is pressing to reach are with Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. Negotiations with Canberra and Wellington on comprehensive accords including agriculture got underway last year, while formal talks with Washington on a deal limited to scrapping industrial duties have yet to start.

• An EU trade pact with Vietnam still needs to clear a final political hurdle in Europe by winning the endorsement of the European Parliament before entering into force provisionally.
• Next in line is a deal struck with the Mercosur group of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay on June 28 after 20 years; it probably won’t start the process of EU-level approval by national governments and the bloc’s Parliament until next year or 2021.
• Further back in the pipeline are deals sought with India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. In addition, separate EU deliberations are taking place with China on an investment accord, which both sides now aim to reach in 2020 after years of slow progress and which could be a precursor to talks on a free-trade pact.

Charting the Trade War

As the U.S. and China duke it out with tariffs, orders are flowing at a record pace to Bangladesh, a South Asian nation where the apparel industry accounts for 13% of the economy. 

Today’s Must Reads

• Japan vs S. Korea | A growing dispute between China’s two richest neighbors has far-reaching implications for the production of everything from Apple iPhones to Dell laptops.
• China’s social push | The country’s ambassador to the U.S. has added Twitter to his toolkit to help communicate to the masses like President Donald Trump, who tweets every twist and turn of the trade war. 
• Passing the buck | Trump’s grousing about currency manipulation elsewhere has Wall Street wondering whether the U.S. will intervene to weaken the dollar for the first time since 2000.
• Chemical warning | Germany’s BASF, the world’s largest chemical maker, is feeling the fallout mainly from the China-U.S. trade dispute and a decline in industrial production globally.
• New Nafta’s path | U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is stuck between reticent Democrats and an anxious White House when it comes to approving the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement.

Economic Analysis

• Postcard from China | Here’s what Tom Orlik of Bloomberg Economics found on a trip to China
• A Brexit sweetener | Sugar will be important in Brexit trade negotiations, and WTO rules will apply

Coming Up

• July 10: U.K. trade balance
• July 12: China trade data, South Korea export prices

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Brendan Murray at brmurray@bloomberg.net, Zoe SchneeweissRichard Bravo

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