Negotiations for a vast US-EU trade pact, which aims to create a free-trade zone covering 850 million people, are likely to grind to a halt because of Washington’s reluctance to make concessions, a top French trade official said yesterday.
“In view of the US’ state of mind today, that seems to be the most likely option,” French Minister of State for Foreign Trade Matthias Fekl told a French radio station when asked if the talks on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which began in 2013, could stop.
Fekl’s comments reflect deep suspicion in Europe that the deal would erode ecological and health regulations to the advantage of big business.
Washington and Brussels want the mega-deal completed this year before US President Barack Obama leaves office, but it has faced mounting opposition on both sides of the Atlantic.
On Monday, environmental pressure group Greenpeace released a trove of leaked documents about the closed-door negotiations, charging that a deal would inflict a dangerous lack of standards on US and European consumers.
However, the European Commission, which negotiates trade deals on behalf of the 28 EU member states, said Greenpeace was “flatly wrong” in its interpretation of the documents.
The Greenpeace leak was a “storm in a teacup,” Brussels said.
US officials also hit back at Greenpeace with the US Trade Representative Michael Froman saying, “the interpretations being given to these texts appear to be misleading at best and flat out wrong at worst.”
Fekl said that Europe was pushing for “reciprocity.”
“Europe is offering a lot and we are getting very little in return. This is unacceptable,” said Fekl, who negotiates trade deals on behalf of France. “It is a deal that — in the state it is in today — would be a bad deal.”
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure