THE ONGOING NEGOTIATION ON THE U.S.-EU BILATERAL FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

Abstract

”America first” is the main driver of Donald Trump`s vision on international trade. Consequently, the American administration is currently engaged in an intensive process of renegotiating the existing trade agreements and negotiating new ones with the main trading partners. The U.S. aims at better protecting the American exporters while reducing its trade deficits with its commercial partners. Against the backdrop of several tariff wars triggered by Donald Trump, the U.S. and the EU started their negotiations with clear, but different objectives regarding some key positions. The paper offers a timeline of the main negotiation landmarks and emphasizes the leading positions, interests and turning points that could provide a boost to the bilateral negotiations. The analysis in our paper is based on insights from the current literature and relevant statistical data, as well as the positions of EU and U.S. officials. It finds that the future of the U.S.-EU free trade agreement is uncertain, due to both the bilateral tariff war and the diverging negotiation objectives.

Keywords

• trade
• agreement
• the u.s.
• european union
• agriculture
• investments