Business, Freight News

Congress setback for transatlantic trade deal

[ June 13, 2015   //   Chris ]

The EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) suffered another setback in a US Congress vote on 12 June when a coalition of left-wing Democrats and right-wing Republicans voted to terminate the trade adjustment assistance (TAA) programme.
Dating from the 1970s, it provided supported workers made redundant as a result of free trade agreements. This had the effect of nullifying other legislation that would have meant that trade deals like TTIP and the Trans-Pacific partnership could not be amended by Congress, but would instead have been subject to a simple yes or no vote, greatly speeding up the process.
Congress’ vote greatly increases the chances of both pacts being substantially amended, or even rejected altogether.
TTIP has also run into problems on the other side of the Atlantic; a European Parliament vote has had to be delayed due to disagreements over investor protection rules and talks are now expected to drag on past the end-2015 deadline into 2016.

Tags: TTIP