MOSCOW, August 30. /TASS/. A senior Russian senator said Tuesday that after the presidential elections in the United States, the future of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will be in doubt.
"If before ‘changing of the guard’ in the White House, the agreements are not signed [and contradictions are strong yet], their future will be in doubt - [Hillary] Clinton, in case of her victory, may return to them, while it looks like [Donald] Trump is not going to stake on them," Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Federation Council’s international affairs committee, wrote on his Facebook page.
TTIP is a proposed trade deal between the United States and the European Union.
Kosachev noted that currently "following 14 rounds of talks, the sides have not reached consent on any of the 27 paragraphs of the agreement." In his view, "the case here is not about some conspiracy of the European leaders against the United States or personally [U.S. President Barack] Obama."
"Agreements called upon to form something like ‘economic NATO’ - an economic super-alliance of the U.S. and EU, many experts think, may overturn global trade, undermining such current mechanisms as the WTO [World Trade Organization]," the senator said.
He said the document also "clearly works for the interests of transnational corporations, global business giants."
The international affairs committee chairman said now "it looks like Europeans have made it more or less clear what they actually deal with in reality." "That’s why, despite powerful pressing on the part of Washington, there appear more and more voices against TTIP, and they are more and more influential," he said.
German Vice Chancellor, Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said in Berlin Tuesday that the United States, in talks on TTIP, displayed unwillingness to observe the EU’s minimum standards; formally the talks have been suspended, but Brussels has not officially notified Washington of that.
Gabriel also underscored that should the position of the American side not change after the presidential elections, there will be no deal on transatlantic trade.
The first round of talks on establishment of Transatlantic Partnership in the sphere of trade and investment took place in July 2013. According to preliminary assessments, the deal may allow the U.S. and EU to create over 13 million new jobs, contribute to the growth of international trade, increase of EU exports to the U.S. by 6.6% and imports from the U.S. by 12.4% annually.