At their first meeting, on the sidelines of the annual OECD ministerial Council meeting in Paris on Wednesday 7 June, European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström and new US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer underscored their "shared interest" in "strengthening the US-EU trade and economic relationship and addressing mutual global trade concerns".
A press release from the office of US Trade Representative (USTR) states that bilateral EU-US trade, expanding export opportunities, and preparations for the WTO ministerial meeting in Buenos Aires in December were at the centre of the discussions between Lighthizer and Malmström.
Lighthizer expressed his commitment "to engaging all US trade partners in advancing free and fair trade for level playing fields in the global economy".
Following the visit of US President Donald Trump to Brussels on 25 May, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker announced that consultations on trade would soon be held between the Commission and US Administration in order to reduce the differences of opinion on both sides. Juncker did not say whether the resumption of the EU-US free trade negotiations (TTIP) had been mentioned. These negotiations came to a halt at the end of 2016 (see EUROPE 11797),
The EU continues to await a position on the TTIP talks from the Trump Administration. These have been on hold since the last round of technical negotiations in October 2016, under the previous US Administration led by Barack Obama (see EUROPE 11654).
Trump's global trade policy is of concern to the EU, both as regards his initiatives aiming to assess the reasons for the US trade deficit and remedy them, and as regards his threats of disengagement at multilateral level (see EUROPE 11786).
US Trade Secretary Wilbur Ross stated on 30 May that the US was "open" to resuming the TTIP negotiations. He added that it was judicious to continue the negotiations on TTIP and to work on a solution that increases EU-US trade generally while reducing the US trade deficit. He also said that it was not by chance the US had withdrawn from the Transpacific Partnership (TPP), but not from TTIP. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)