Talks aimed at setting up a U.S.-European free trade zone have run aground because of intransigence on Washington's part, a top German politician said Sunday. The Obama administration and the 28-member European Union have been in talks to set up the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP, which would be the world's largest free trade zone.
A week of trade talks in Brussels have taken the European Union and the United States a little closer to a deal to liberalize bilateral trade. EU officials say the trade relationship with the US is already the biggest in the world, worth more than 2bn Euros a day, but barriers remain, and removing them could make it even bigger. If it happens, the agreement would be huge, capable of changing the shape of global trade.