dChan
Anonymous ID: 68492a April 11, 2019, 11:17 a.m. No.6138530   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>8700 >>8968 >>9045

EU clears way for start of formal trade talks with U.S

 

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union countries gave initial clearance on Thursday to start formal trade talks with the United States, EU sources said, a move designed but not guaranteed to smooth strained relations between the world’s two largest economies.

The European Commission, which coordinates trade policy for the 28 member European Union, has sought clearance for two negotiating mandates — one to cut tariffs on industrial goods, the other to make it easier for companies to show products meet EU or U.S. standards.

 

The Commission presented its mandates in January and found support from most EU members. France resisted, however, insisting that agriculture should not feature in the talks but that climate change provisions should — a difficult demand given U.S. President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement.

 

The European Union and the United States reached a detente last July when Trump agreed to hold off from imposing punitive tariffs on EU cars as the two sides sought to improve economic ties.

U.S. tariffs still apply to EU steel and aluminum, however, while Trump threatened on Tuesday to impose further tariffs on $11 billion worth of EU products related to a long-running aircraft subsidy dispute.

 

A joint EU/U.S. statement in July referred to a goal of removing tariffs on “non-auto industrial goods”.

 

EU sources said ambassadors agreed to the mandates at a meeting on Thursday.

 

National ministers will still need to give final approval, although they would normally do so without debate. One source said the mandates had been added to the agenda of an agriculture ministers’ meeting in Brussels on Monday.

CARS, FARM PRODUCTS IN OR OUT?

The Commission has repeatedly said it will not discuss tariffs or barriers to trade in farm products, but is willing to discuss cars, setting it on a possible collision course with Washington.

The Trump administration has a wide-ranging wish list, including comprehensive agricultural market access.

Diplomats say Germany, whose exports of cars and parts to the United States are more than half the EU total, wants to press ahead with talks to ward off tariffs on carmakers Volkswagen, Mercedes maker Daimler and BMW.

France, with very few U.S. car exports, had been seeking to push the issue beyond the European Parliament election in May, convinced that dealing with Trump is not a vote winner.

The U.S. Trade Representative has meanwhile proposed targeting a list of $11 billion worth of EU products for tariffs, ranging from large commercial aircraft to dairy products and wine, as retaliation against European subsidies for Airbus. A final list is expected this summer.

The European Commission said it had started to draw up plans to retaliate over subsidies for U.S. planemaker Boeing.

Both sides have won partial victories at the World Trade Organization in claiming the other’s planemaker received unlawful subsidies but disagree on the amount involved and whether each has complied with earlier WTO rulings.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-eu/eu-clears-way-for-start-of-formal-trade-talks-with-u-s-idUSKCN1RN1Z2

Anonymous ID: 68492a April 11, 2019, 11:39 a.m. No.6138892   🗄️.is 🔗kun

>>6138811

would be right there cheering with you anon.

that's why I said anything possible. No one knows for sure. Have an open mind with everything-even the r stuff that many have discarded and have thrown away.

Anonymous ID: 68492a April 11, 2019, 11:42 a.m. No.6138975   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>8985

Putin's judo partner squeezed Shell out of LNG project - sources

 

LONDON/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell pulled out of a project to build a Russian liquefied natural gas plant partly because Gazprom suddenly added another partner with links to an ally of President Vladimir Putin, according to five sources.

After three years work on the Baltic Coast project, Shell discovered that Gazprom was bringing in a company linked to Arkady Rotenberg, who is on a U.S. sanctions blacklist.

The sudden change in the line-up of partners was one of the key factors contributing to Shell’s Wednesday announcement that it was pulling out of the project, according to three sources close to Shell and two other sources familiar with the project.

Asked to comment on the reasons for withdrawing, a Shell spokesman said it had nothing to add to a previous statement that said its exit followed Gazprom’s announcement last month of its final concept for the project. Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said the company was not commenting.

According to the two sources close to Shell, Gazprom did not consult with Shell about bringing in the firm, which is called RusGazDobycha, but instead presented it with the plan as a fait accompli.

With RusGazDobycha’s arrival also came changes to the configuration of the project itself, which Shell did not feel comfortable with, all of the sources said.

It became untenable for Shell to stay in the project “and that was clear from the moment that Gazprom announced it was going to build the plant together with RusGazDobycha,” said one of the sources familiar with the project.

A RusGazDobycha official did not respond to a request for comment. Asked if the presidential administration had any role in RusGazDobycha’s entry into the project, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was a question for the companies involved.

The sudden shift in the project underlines the unpredictability of doing business in Russia — even for a firm like Shell with a long pedigree of successful cooperation. It also shows how Rotenberg’s business empire, focused mainly on construction and engineering, is expanding into the energy sector.

Shell said that its other joint projects in Russia — chief among them the Gazprom-led Sakhalin-2 LNG plant — would be unaffected by its exit from the Baltic LNG project.

But Shell’s involvement in Sakhalin expires this month. Unless the Russian government decides to extend the Sakhalin deal, Shell’s portfolio of Russian projects will be left looking thin.

The Russian government has given no indication as to whether it would extend Shell’s Sakhalin contract.