Europe isn’t wasting much time expanding its global trading relationships while President Donald Trump shreds the U.S. playbook on multilateralism and tries elsewhere to overhaul the rules of international commerce.
As Trump charted his “America First’’ political course in 2016, the European Union restarted negotiations with the Mercosur group of countries including Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Those talks may be close to becoming the EU’s next big deal in the Trump era, with two-way trade in goods valued at 85 billion euros ($96 billion):
- Chief negotiators from the two regions are holding technical discussions this week in Brussels, and if successful, will lead to a political meeting next week to iron out final details.
- A Mercosur deal would come after the record EU-Japan pact went into effect in February and a deal with Canada that has provisionally gone into force. The EU’s next round of talks with Australia is set to commence in July.
- Meanwhile, the American ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, told a conference in Brussels on Thursday: “Unfortunately Congress has informed me recently that trade talks with the EU are at a standstill.’’
- U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, speaking this week on Bloomberg Television, wasn’t optimistic about meeting with EU officials anytime soon. Europe’s recent parliamentary elections and a change in leadership make it “a little bit hard to negotiate when you’re not sure who the counterpart will be. It will likely be early fall before that gets resolved,” Ross said.
