Europe is ready to resume\ntrade talks with the United States on a transatlantic trade deal. EU member\nstates voted on Monday to open trade talks with the United States despite\nopposition from France, which objects to the United States’ position on climate\nchange and could derail that final deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cecilia Malmstr\u00f6m, Europe’s top trade official, said she would continue with Trump’s management and inform them of the\nresults. “We are ready [to start the talks] whenever they are,” she declared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the dispute over\nagriculture may hinder the talks before they begin. The EU says agriculture\nwill not be debated, while the United States insists it be part of the\nnegotiations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The divisions underscore\nthe difficult task for negotiators, especially with the complex history of\nUS-European trade talks. “I think the EU side would be reluctant to refuse\nto talk,” said a senior analyst, one of the most important lecturers at the University\nof Sussex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Opposition in Paris<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n EU-US trade in goods and\nservices is worth over $1.1 trillion a year. But French President Emmanuel Macron has already\nannounced his position on the talks: Europe should not negotiate a trade deal\nwith a country that is not part of the Paris Climate Convention of 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It is a question of\nvalues: Europe must be exemplary and firm in its protection of climate,” a\nspokesman for Macron said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n President Donald Trump\nannounced in 2017 that the United States would withdraw from the agreement.\nMacron says it would not be fair for only one party in a business deal to\nfollow strict environmental standards agreed in Paris. France voted against the\nstart of trade talks with the United States on Monday but was overruled by a majority of EU member states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While France has not been\nable to prevent the start of trade talks with the United States, it can block\nany deal it produces. All EU member states must sign trade deals negotiated by\nthe bloc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “This fight will have\nto continue, particularly in the European Parliament, without which no trade\nagreement can be approved after the negotiations,” said\na spokesperson for Macron.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nagriculture problem<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The United States and the\nEuropean Union are already at loggheads over whether agriculture should be a subject included in\ntrade talks. The\nEU protects its heavily subsidized agricultural sector,\nand at the same time, the United\nStates wants to break tariffs and sell agricultural products in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is a very emotional issue\nin many parts of Europe, where voters are afraid to open a trade deal with the\nUnited States as this might bring in genetically altered\nfoods. The United States insists\nthat if Europe wants an agreement, it must include agriculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n US Trade Representative\nRobert Lighthizer said last month: “We’re working on other areas with the\nrealization that there’s not going to be any [free trade agreement] without\nagriculture,” At the same time, EU officials argue that agriculture has\nnever been on the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When European Commission\nPresident Jean-Claude Juncker visited the White House last year, he and Trump\nagreed only to work to remove tariffs and barriers to “non-auto industrial\ngoods.” The joint statement by the two leaders at the time did not refer\nto agriculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Increasing tension<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The confrontations follow a series of disagreements between the United States and Europe on the trade subject. Earlier this\nweek, the Trump administration threatened to impose customs duties on European\ngoods worth $11 billion on aircraft support. The European Commission said it\nwould seek to respond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump is also considering\nwhether to impose a tariff of up to 25% on European car imports, with a\ndecision to be issued by mid-May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The US President has already imposed a tariff on European steel and aluminum exports.\nEurope has responded with tariffs on US products worth more than $3 billion, such as motorcycles,\norange juice and cigarettes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Europe is ready to resume trade talks with the United States on a transatlantic trade deal. EU member states voted on Monday to open trade talks with the United States despite opposition from France, which […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[36,34,48,24,33,102,109],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skyeconomynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skyeconomynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skyeconomynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skyeconomynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skyeconomynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1157"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/skyeconomynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1159,"href":"https:\/\/skyeconomynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157\/revisions\/1159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skyeconomynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skyeconomynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skyeconomynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skyeconomynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}