Description
In less than a year since taking office for a second time, Trump’s Administration’s highly dynamic and aggressive trade policy (especially shifting tariff regimes) has triggered a variety of responses across the globe affecting trade policies, strategies and negotiations. This adds additional turmoil to an already complicated global landscape in terms of trade governance (WTO challenges, contestation of existing rules order, multiplication of free trade agreements). Moreover, individual trade deals negotiated with the USA to reduce levels of unliterally imposed ‘reciprocal’ tariffs, not only undermine key principles of global trade rules (MFN), but spur new trade strategies and relations amongst third parties such as negotiation of free trade agreements to signal support for the established trade rules, to hedge against further USA tariffs, and diversify trade and investment relations. However, some of the non-tariff elements in deals with the USA can complicate and challenge other states’ trade strategies, and their negotiations with third parties and generate additional complexity to trade relations and to states’ negotiations and trade relations with third parties. Drawing on official sources (trade strategy documents, joint declarations and summaries of negotiation rounds, speeches), and interviews with trade officials, this contribution charts the extent to which USA trade policy convulsions are being framed as justifications for ongoing and new FTA negotiations, and examines whether this is enough to propel negotiations forward. Focus will be placed on the EU, where contestation of trade agreements has prevented the finalisation and ratification of various agreements over the last decade, to ascertain the impact of uncertainty. Special attention will be paid to changing objectives of partners and their responses to USA policies to help explain how different negotiations are faring.
