The European Union May Be Delaying Trade Negotiations Deliberately

The EU-US trade deal should have been the easiest to complete.

However, the deal is not progressing because the negotiation team refuses to lift any of the EU’s non-tariff barriers or to discuss the limitations imposed on US agricultural, livestock, and car exports.

These are the reasons why it should have been a concise and quick trade deal:

Most of the United States’ team demands coincide with the Draghi report’s concerns about excessive regulation and internal barriers. 

According to Eurochambres estimates, the cost of hyper-regulation for the EU exceeds one trillion euros per year. Draghi himself warned in an FT article, “Forget the US—Europe has successfully put tariffs on itself,” citing IMF estimates that show that internal barriers, regulation, and taxation increase prices in the services sector by 110 per cent and in manufacturing by 45 per cent.

If the EU negotiators had presented a comprehensive package of tariff reductions for agriculture, farming, and the automotive industry, a preliminary deal would have been signed immediately, benefitting everyone. However, the negotiators were only willing to negotiate possible improvements to LNG imports with the vague concept of “strengthening investment,” limiting any tariff negotiation to industrial goods where there was no significant dispute.

The United States’ requests to the European Union were significantly less demanding than the negotiations of burdens from China or India.

Unfortunately, the EU negotiators were only willing to propose plans to lower tariffs on industrial goods and non-sensitive agri-food exports, as well as a clause to keep the US from introducing further tariffs while talks are ongoing, according to Bloomberg. The EU stated that tariffs could be reduced in phases or

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