German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his Social Democratic Party are considering a push to revive talks on a free trade agreement between the European Union and the US, Der Spiegel reported.
“Germany should dismantle transatlantic trade barriers and make a new start on a free trade agreement that increases prosperity while protecting climate and social policy standards,” the magazine quoted a strategy paper as saying.
US trade with the EU’s 27 members -- worth about $1.1 trillion and the world’s largest bilateral economic exchange -- currently takes place on non-preferential terms established at the World Trade Organization.
The US-EU Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, known as TTIP, foundered after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016.
Despite Joe Biden’s administration taking a warmer approach to transatlantic relations than his predecessor, trade tensions remain unresolved including a dispute over steel tariffs.
However, House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal said last week that Democrats should prioritize free-trade negotiations with the EU if they’re able to maintain their hold on Congress after the November midterm elections.
Scholz this week suggested that the process of ratifying EU trade deals -- which require approval from all member states and sometimes even regional parliaments in individual countries -- needs to be simplified.
“We need to think again somehow about how the EU can do its free trade agreements without really depending too much on what all 27 member countries say about it,” Scholz said Tuesday at an industry conference in Berlin.