The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is a proposed free trade agreement between the European Union (EU) and the United States of America (USA). Proponents say the agreement would result in multilateral economic growth. The American government considers the TTIP a companion agreement to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. After a proposed draft was leaked in March 2014, the European Commission launched a public consultation on a limited set of clauses. The US and European Union together represent 60% of global GDP, 33% of world trade in goods and 42% of world trade in services. Negotiations are held in week-long cycles alternating between Brussels and Washington. The negotiators hope to conclude their work in 2015. The 28 governments will then have to approve or reject the negotiated agreement in the EU Council of Ministers, at which point the European Parliament will also be asked for its endorsement. The EU Parliament is empowered to approve or reject the agreement. The TTIP Agreement texts are being developed by 24 joint EU-US working groups, each considering a separate aspect of the agreement.
Economic barriers between the EU and the US are relatively low, not only due to long-standing membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) but recent agreements such as the EU–US Open Skies Agreement and work by the Transatlantic Economic Council. The European Commission claims that passage of a trans-Atlantic trade pact could boost overall trade between the respective blocs by as much as 50%. However, economic relations are tense and there are frequent trade disputes between the two economies, many of which end up before the World Trade Organization. Economic gains of TTIP were predicted in the joint report issued by the White House and the European Commission. Some form of Transatlantic Free Trade Area had been proposed in the 1990s and later in 2006 by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in reaction to the collapse of the Doha world trade talks. However, protectionism on both sides may be a barrier to any future agreement. It was first initiated in 1990, when, shortly after the end of the Cold War, with the world no longer divided into two blocs, the European Community (12 countries) and the US signed a “Transatlantic Declaration.” This called for the continued existence of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as well as for yearly summits, biennial meetings between ministers of State, and more frequent encounters between political figures and senior officials. Subsequent initiatives taken by the European deciders and the US government included: in 1995, the creation of a pressure group of business people, the Transatlantic Business Dialogue (TABD) by public authorities on both sides of the Atlantic; in 1998, the creation of an advisory committee, the Transatlantic Economic Partnership; in 2007, the creation of the Transatlantic Economic Council, in which representatives from firms operating on both sides of the Atlantic meet to advise the European Commission and the US government – and finally, in 2011, the creation of a group of high-level experts whose conclusions, submitted on February 11, 2013, recommended the launching of negotiations for a wide-ranging free-trade agreement. On February 12, 2013, President Barack Obama called in his annual State of the Union address for such an agreement. The following day, EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso announced that talks would take place to negotiate the agreement.
TTIP aims for a formal agreement that shall “liberalise one-third of global trade,” which they argue will create millions of new paid jobs. “With tariffs between the United States and the EU already low, the United Kingdom’s Centre for Economic Policy Research estimates that 80 percent of the potential economic gains from the TTIP agreement depend on reducing the conflicts of duplication between EU and US rules on those and other regulatory issues, ranging from food safety to automobile parts.” A successful strategy (according to Thomas Bollyky at the Council on Foreign Relations and Anu Bradford of Columbia Law School) will focus on business sectors for which transatlantic trade laws and local regulations can often overlap, e.g.: pharmaceutical, agricultural, and financial trading. This will ensure that the United States and Europe remain “standard makers, rather than standard takers,” in the global economy, subsequently ensuring that producers worldwide continue to gravitate toward joint US-EU standards.
A March 2013 economic assessment by the European Centre for Economic Policy Research estimates that such a comprehensive agreement would result in annual GDP growth of 68-119 billion euros by 2027 and annual GDP growth of 50-95 billion euros in the US in the same time frame. The 2013 report also estimates that a limited agreement focused only on tariffs would yield annual EU GDP growth of 24 billion euros by 2027 and annual growth of 9 billion euros in the US. If shared equally among the affected people, the most optimistic GDP growth estimates would translate into “additional annual disposable income for a family of four” of “545 euros in the EU” and “655 euros in the US,” respectively. In a Wall Street Journal article, the CEO of Siemens GmBH (with its workforce located 70% in Europe and 30% in the US) claimed that the TTIP would strengthen US and EU global competitiveness by reducing trade barriers, by improving intellectual property protections, and by establishing new international “rules of the road.” The European Commission says that the TTIP would boost the EU’s economy by €120 billion, the US economy by €90 billion and the rest of the world by €100 billion.
One of the first official acts of the thankfully fired after only one term in office, several times impeached, obviously with the help of the Russian Tsar Vladimir Putin appointed and led and not only for this reason the worst US President of all time, Donald Trump, was to put TTIP on hold. After Joe Biden was sworn in as US President as a result of an outstanding election success, the chances of resumption of negotiations are good (Transatlantic relations).
