The US on Friday signaled it would not bow to the EU’s request to keep agriculture out of planned trade talks, publishing negotiating objectives that seek comprehensive EU access for US farm products.
The objectives, required by the US Congress under the “fast-track” trade negotiating authority law, seek to reduce or eliminate EU tariffs on US farm products and break down non-tariff barriers, including on products developed using biotechnology, the US Trade Representative’s (USTR) office said.
Agricultural issues were among the major sticking points in past negotiations for a major US-EU trade deal, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, before talks were shelved after US President Donald Trump was elected in 2016.
In Washington on Wednesday, EU Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmstrom told US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer that the 28-country bloc could not negotiate on agriculture in a new, more limited set of negotiations expected to start this year.
“We have made very clear agriculture will not be included,” Malmstrom told reporters after meeting Lighthizer, adding that the two sides had not yet agreed on the scope of the talks.
The USTR’s decision to push for a fully fledged trade negotiation on agricultural goods follows a hearing last month at which US farm, food and beverage groups argued for their products to be included.
Influential lawmakers such as US Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa farmer, have said they might not support an EU deal that did not include agriculture.
Now that the US objectives have been published, the USTR might be ready to formally launch negotiations in as few as 30 days.
However, the EU’s own negotiating mandates on industrial goods and regulatory cooperation need to be cleared by the European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch, and approved by member states, and it is unclear how long that process could take.
The US had a US$151 billion goods deficit with the EU in 2017, despite two-way annual trade of about US$1.1 billion.
The USTR also said it would seek commitments by Europe not to impose duties on any digital downloads of US software, movies, music and other products, nor any rules that restrict cross-border data flows or require data localization, the USTR said.
In an objective aimed at Europe’s efforts to tax products and services from US-based Internet giants, including Alphabet Inc’s Google, Facebook Inc and Amazon.com Inc, the USTR said it would seek a “guarantee that these products will not face government-sanctioned discrimination based on the nationality or territory in which the product is produced.”
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