US-EU Trade Cooperation Through TTC Seen as Different From T-TIP
The US-EU Trade and Technology Council needs to limit its ambitions if it is to be successful, said Tyson Barker, head of the Technology and Global Affairs Program at the German Council on Foreign Relations, during a Washington International Trade Association webinar May 13.
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Asked whether the TTC should be viewed as a "Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership 2," Barker said: "I wouldn't talk about the TTC as an agreement ... this is a process." Just days before the May 16 TTC stakeholder meeting (see 2205120003), webinar questions focused on how the TTC would differ, both in process and in outcomes, from T-TIP. "T-TIP tanked in key countries like Germany" because it was seen as a "behind-closed-doors negotiation," Barker said. TTC has had to limit its ambitions "due to kickback from stakeholders or citizens thinking that they might be taken advantage of."
The TTC is an entirely different type of arrangement, said Barker. "This may not be the moment for classic free-trade agreements ... especially not with the political sentiment in the U.S.," he said. "The Euro-Atlantic economic relationship is much more built on services and digitization ... regulated by technical standards." While "classic zeroing out of tariffs" is still important, this time, Barker said, "tweaking around the margins" is more likely and the TTC is as much a tool of political alignment as it is the basis for trade agreements. "The TTC is the heart of [a] systemic partnership," Barker said.
Even before an official agreement, "TTC is already yielding dividends," he said. For instance, the TTC framework made sanctions coordination against Russia faster and more effective. According to Barker, "implementation of the foreign direct product rule on the entire country of Russia ... would have taken maybe six weeks and a lot of hurt feelings ... but they were able to make that happen within days because of processes in place because of the TTC." The TTC is not without its issues, he said. "There is a lot of regulatory convergence on both sides of the Atlantic ... on content moderation and AI, and technical standards," Barker said, "but convergence is not creating harmony because the processes work so differently."