AFP: Rumors of TTIP’s demise greatly exaggerated?

Negotiations between the United States and European Union on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership free trade agreement may still be on the table despite assumptions to the contrary, according to a report from Agence France-Presse.    Rumors of the demise of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a massive free trade agreement between the United States and European Union, may have been greatly exaggerated, according to a report from Agence France-Presse.
   Negotiations on TTIP stalled out last year amid the U.S. presidential election and reported opposition to the deal in both the U.S. and EU.
   The assumption for most trade analysts was that President Donald Trump’s publicly stated abhorrence of a similar deal with Asian countries, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), extended to TTIP as well, but one senior U.S. diplomat says that simply isn’t the case.
   The AFP report quoted Adam Shub, who is currently serving as an envoy to the EU while Trump searches for a new full-time ambassador, said he “would really take issue with the notion that the TTIP is dead.”
   “We are reviewing it,” Shub reportedly told the foreign affairs committee of the European parliament. “You know the president’s position on TPP, but TTIP is not in that category.”
   According to Shub, TTIP talks were put on the “back burner” because of bad timing, not the content of the agreement.
   “I think it was our perception that, due to the difficulty with the upcoming German election, the Netherlands election, … the French election, this was not the best climate to continue a trade negotiation that was perceived in many parts of the public as something very, very different,” he said.
   “One has to be an optimist,” said Shub, adding that the U.S. position on TTIP will emerge once the Trump administration appoints a new trade representative to replace Michael Froman, who served as USTR under President Barack Obama.