Obama’s top trade deals remain stuck at hurdles

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama’s two most ambitious trade deals appear increasingly in trouble, victims of electoral politics at home and in Europe and a ticking clock on his administration.

- And in Germany, vice chancellor ship nor the Transatlantic Trade and economy minister Sigmar Gabriand Investment Partnership is dead, el said the talks “have de facto failed.” but analysts say the hurdles to getWhile negotiators from both sides ting either completed by the end of certainly alive and making progress, now almost insurmountable. analysts said both TTIP and TPP

For the TPP, already negotiated would likely be stalled to at least 2018. “The clock has basically run out,” said Gary Hufbauer, a trade expert at Congress, the political atmosphere the Peterson Institute for International has been soured with both presidenEconomics in Washington. tial candidates Hillary Clinton and “I agree more with the ‘more dead Donald Trump, pitching for votes, saying they are opposed to it. Agence France-Presse.

As for TTIP – a treaty with the en tire European Union – negotiations are stuck on the toughest issues Obama has strongly pursued what and European politicians, facing he has called “trade deals for the elections next year, are likewise 21st century.” declaring opposition. Each would dwarf any previous

French President Francois Holfree trade treaty, going beyond cutting lande said Tuesday that TTIP talks goods tariffs to establish rules gov“will not lead to an agreement by the erning data trade, investment rights, end of the year,” and hours earlier his intellectual property rights and other issues not covered in past deals. called for an end to the talks. -

“There is no more political support gotiated largely in secret and be in France for these negotiations,” presented to respective governments he said. and legislatures as completed deals for up-or-down votes.

The 12 TPP countries reached agreement in October 2015, and the main challenge to implementing it is

TPP has become a hot issue ahead of the US presidential and congressional

- ments show it will in the French and German elections next year.

“Election periods are always not good times for trade agreements,” Hufbauer told AFP.

Moreover, relative to TPP, the TTIP talks have been rushed, and have been withdraw from the European Union, potentially removing a key US ally fromt he deal.

“It was never going to be easy between the US and the EU because basically you have the two elephants (of global trade) negotiating with the Atlantic Council.

Obama has a chance to move both

He could submit TPP to Congress in early January, when legislators could vote with less political pressure.

at the Cato Institute, gives that “about a one percent chance” of succeeding.

“I think the votes are really not there,” he said, with the normally pro-free trade Republican Party deeply divided.

Obama could also drive his chief trade negotiator, Michael Froman, to - mises, which coud create a political

“There is some chance that we will be very close to what is known as a political agreement by the end of

- tain to be left to the next president, widely expected to be Clinton. supported the negotiating effort but has opposed TPP on the campaign trail.

“Presidential candidates tend to be more populist and more antitrade. Presidents themselves see to support it.”

Trump is more of a cipher, with his campaign advisors including some anti-trade ideologues, noted Ikenson.

industry pressure could force a president Trump into supporting the deals, he posited.