At the top of the in-tray for the EU's new trade commissioner will be talks with big, difficult world powers
offensive,” declares Cecilia Malmstrom, gesticulating around her orchid-lined office in the European Commission’s Berlaymont headquarters. “We have colleagues here whose parents fought together [with the Americans] on the Normandy coast and we are a threat to national security?” The’s trade commissioner is referring to Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on European steel and aluminium, which he preposterously claims is necessary for national-security reasons.
This tit-for-tat does not come easily to Ms Malmstrom, a pro-trade Swedish liberal. When she took office in 2014 the World Trade Organisation’s Doha round of multilateral tariff reductions was stagnant and European city squares thronged with protests against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership , a mooted trade deal with America.
All three of these factors are now under strain, creating three big problems for Phil Hogan, her nominated successor as trade supremo in Ursula von der Leyen’s incoming commission. At the top of Mr Hogan’s in-tray will be talks not with smaller, friendly powers but with big, difficult ones. Ambitions for the next few years include an investment agreement with China , a free-trade deal with India , a deal with a post-Brexit Britain and a deal to cut tariffs with Mr Trump’s America .
The domestic picture, too, is becoming harsher. The new European Parliament—which has a veto on trade deals—is more fragmented than the last. It contains a somewhat larger populist component, and Mrs von der Leyen’s commission may in certain votes be reliant on the flourishing Greens, who set a high bar for environmental and consumer standards that even theof Mr Trump’s anti-trade stance are drying up. In future, the American president may make life for free-traders much harder.
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