Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is a proposed trade agreement between the United States and the European Union, initiated in July 2013. The primary aim of TTIP is to enhance trade by reducing barriers and harmonizing regulations across various industries, including automotive, medical equipment, and agriculture. The agreement seeks to establish a unified approach to product safety and testing, potentially simplifying the approval processes for goods moving between the two regions. However, TTIP has faced significant opposition from various groups concerned about potential drawbacks, such as the weakening of environmental and labor standards, and perceived corporate influence over regulations.
Negotiations for TTIP have been characterized by a lack of transparency, with many meetings conducted in private, leading to public criticism regarding the democratic process involved. Opponents argue that secretive discussions undermine public trust and risk prioritizing corporate interests over consumer and environmental protections. The final agreement will require approval from both the U.S. government and the member states of the EU, making its ratification a complex process. Despite the challenges, proponents of TTIP believe that it could strengthen economic ties and modernize trade relations in an increasingly globalized marketplace. The completion of TTIP has been projected to be a lengthy endeavor, with some experts suggesting that it may not be finalized by the initially anticipated 2020 deadline.
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Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, often abbreviated TTIP, was a proposed trade agreement between the United States and the European Union (EU). Negotiations for TTIP began in July 2013. The agreement aimed to benefit the economies of the United States and the EU by encouraging more trade. Opponents to TTIP argued that the changes needed to increase trade, such as revising safety regulations, environmental rules, and banking regulations, would do more harm than good. President Donald Trump stopped the negotiations and initiated a trade conflict with the EU. The TTIP was officially declared obsolete in 2019.
Background
Negotiations on the TTIP involved representatives from both the United States and EU who met regularly to deliberate about trade policy, the text of the agreement, and implementation. The first set of negotiations occurred in Washington, DC, on July 7–12, 2013. Negotiations continued after this, with meetings occurring in both the United States and the EU. These were closed meetings, meaning that the public and press were not invited to attend, and the draft agreement was never made public.
TTIP buillt upon a strong history of trade between Europe and the United States. In 2015, according to the US Census Bureau, US exports to the EU totaled some $272 billion, and EU imports into the United States totaled $427 billion, making the United States the EU’s largest trading partner. Since the end of World War II, many corporations have engaged in transatlantic trade, and several agreements have been signed to regulate that trade. TTIP was designed to increase this trade by adapting to the modern marketplace, which required new agreements and regulations for the digital economy, mobile labor forces, and manufacturing new technologies.
If a final partnership had been agreed upon by the negotiators, it would have been voted on by each government that was a member of the EU as well as the United States. This meant that twenty-eight different governments would have had to review and approve the partnership before it was ratified and became law. If the partnership was passed, it would have become a major document governing trade between the United States and the EU countries. Whenever there was a conflict or violation of the partnership, members of TTIP would submit their complaints to a regulatory committee that would have been established as part of TTIP.
Overview
The TTIP would have encouraged more trade between the EU and the United States by removing most remaining trade barriers, such as differences in the ways companies and their products are regulated and resolving trade conflicts between the United States and the EU. These revisions would have affected many industries, ranging from cars to medical equipment to pesticides.
Opponents of the TTIP, however, argued that the agreement could have caused major setbacks in environmental standards, among other areas. For example, some nations in the EU have laws specifically banning the import of genetically modified foods. TTIP might have removed those bans, which would have allowed for more US agricultural products to be sold in EU countries, but might also have angered the citizens of countries that fought to ban genetically modified foods. Another objection to TTIP was that the negotiations were being conducted in secret. This secrecy was designed to allow government officials to express their opinions without having to worry about the ways that those opinions and negotiations might be represented in the press.
President Donald Trump's America First trade policy hindered the progression of the TTIP as well as the imposition of US tariffs and the retaliatory tariffs imposed by the EU. In 2018, the United States and the EU reached an agreement that repaired their relationship. By 2019, the TTIP was considered no longer relevant.
Bibliography
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Vastine, J. Robert, J. Bradford Jensen, and Hosuk Lee-Makiyama. "The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership: An Accident Report." European Centre for International Political Economy Policy Briefs. ECIPE, Jan. 2015. Web. 25 Aug. 2016.