S5 Ep40: Director's Cut: Resuming the EU-US trade talks

Maria Demertzis sits down with Bruegel senior fellow
André Sapir to break down the news, discussing the events leading
up to the renewed EU-US trade talks, and the likely future
course.


On 15 April 2019, the European Council approved mandates for the
Commission to resume trade negotiations with the United States,
which are to be centered around eliminating industrial tariffs.
Although already a breakthrough, the talks are set to encounter
many difficulties given their highly political nature.


Bruegel's deputy director Maria Demertzis sits down with senior
fellow André Sapir to assess the news, discussing the events
leading up to the renewed talks and the likely future outcomes.


A consistent theme in the making of any EU trade deal is the
repeated declaration that it would only engage with countries
that are signatories to the Paris Agreement. In 2017, the Trump
administration announced the US' intention to withdraw from that
agreement, which should in theory exclude the possibility of a
trade deal. Maria and Andre discuss just how likely it is for the
deal to come to fruition against this backdrop.


Lastly, the discussants touch upon how the fractured EU-US trade
relationship affects the multilateral trading system and, by
extension, global economic growth.


For further reading, we recommend the Policy Contribution of Uri
Dadush and Guntram Wolff, which analyses how Europe can act in
the interest both of itself and the multilateral system amid the
ongoing global trade crisis. Similarly, consider Alicia
García-Herrero's recent Working Paper on the the options
available to the EU in the face of the US-China trade stand-off.