US economy

Trump-Juncker trade agreement risks collapse, says Ross


One of the US’s most senior trade officials has hit out at the European Commission for not living up to commitments it made in July to drive forward trade talks, saying they risked exhausting the patience of US president Donald Trump.

Speaking to reporters in Brussels, Wilbur Ross, the US commerce secretary, took issue with comments made by Cecilia Malmstrom, the EU’s trade commissioner, earlier that day suggesting the US has so far shown little impetus to enter into negotiations on a trade deal on industrial goods.

“My problem with the statement is that it is a very weak and a very conditional thing, and it implies that the US has been the one that is slowing things down, that is simply inaccurate”, Mr Ross said. “The president’s patience is not unlimited”.

Mr Ross, who met with Mr Malmstrom and other senior EU officials on Tuesday, said he was responding to statements from the EU commissioner saying that it was for the US to come forward and say it was ready to start discussing a deal to eliminate tariffs.

Ms Malmstrom told reporters on Wednesday that “we have asked and said several times that we are prepared to start the scoping exercise on a limited agreement focused on industrial goods, on tariffs.”

“So far the US has not shown any big interest there, so the ball is in their court.”

“We have not started negotiating yet, but if this is the first step taken by the US we are happy to continue those discussions,” she said.

Mr Ross said that the comments, if accurate, were “very discouraging” and did not reflect his conversations with her.

“It’s as though she was at a different meeting from the one that we attended”, he said. “Our purpose in the meeting was to address the need for speed and for getting to near-term deliverables including both tariff relief and standards”.

Mr Ross was speaking alongside, Gordon Sondland, the US’s ambassador to the EU, who also warned the EU needed to boost its efforts to honour an agreement reached by the EU and US in July to bolster commercial ties.

Mr Sondland complained of “complete intransigence of her [Malmstrom’s] team in engaging in any meaningful way on any of the issues we discussed on July 25”.

He went as far as to suggest that the approach could be a ploy to “wait out the term of president Trump”, something he described as a “futile exercise”.

The US officials hinted that Mr Trump could revive stalled plans to hit the EU car sector with punitive tariffs if more progress is not made.

“If the president sees more quotes like the one that came out today his patience will come to an end”, Mr Sondland said.

Ms Malmstrom’s comments reflect others she has made in recent weeks indicating that the US has been more interested in taking forward talks on removing non-tariff, regulatory, barriers to trade, than on discussing tariffs. The EU commissioner has said she is happy to work on that basis and that officials from both sides will meet in the US next week for technical talks.

Ms Malmstrom’s main point of contact in her talks with the US is the country’s trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, although she did have extensive discussions earlier this year with Mr Ross at a time when EU-US trade tensions were escalating over cars and steel.



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