Obama, EU leaders say trade deal should provide broad benefits

President Obama insisted Wednesday that a massive trade deal between the United States and the European Union should benefit the bulk of people in both economies.

Obama, who is traveling through Europe this week, pushed back against accusations that U.S. trade officials are giving corporations the upper hand in the trade talks and that inking a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) would lead to a weakening of a broad array of global rules.

{mosads}”Part of the suspicion about trade is whether globalization is benefiting everybody, as opposed to just those at the top and some small segments of our economies, or large corporations, as opposed to small- and medium-sized businesses,” Obama said during an EU-U.S. summit in Brussels.

“I think it is important for us as leaders to ensure that trade is helping folks at the bottom and folks in the middle, not just a few elites,” he said.

Following a meeting with European Union President Jose Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, Obama said “that’s the test that I’m going to apply in whether or not it makes sense for us to move forward in a trade deal. I’m confident we can actually shape a trade deal that accomplishes those things.”

Barroso said that Obama’s visit “sends a very strong signal” about the ability of the U.S. and the EU to complete a trade deal, possibly sometime next year.

The leaders are determined “at the highest level to make it happen and to be a success,” he said.

U.S. and EU negotiators announced at the completion of the fourth round of talks earlier this month that they plan to add a chapter aimed at specifically considering the needs of small- and medium-sized businesses.

Smaller firms employ the vast majority of people on both sides of the Atlantic.

To that point, Obama he argued that any suggestion that large corporations are trying to steer the trade deals to work in their favor and weaken rules and regulations are mostly “unjustified.”

On Tuesday, Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, expressed concern that trade officials are operating under an outdated negotiating framework that will boost corporate profits and lead to more U.S. job losses and continued wage stagnation.

“Our hope has been that we would see a new template, one that we could support,” Trumka said at the Center for American Progress.  

“Yet so far, we see the same corporate-dominated processes, and, in too many respects, the same fundamental outdated framework for both agreements.”

But Obama made clear that he won’t move forward with a trade deal with the EU that erodes consumer or environmental protections and acknowledged concerns on both sides of the Atlantic about the potential long-term benefits.

“I think that there’s been a lot of publicity and speculation about what might be or could be or is this provision potentially used by corporations to, you know, in some fashion weaken some of these protections or encroach on sovereign decisions that are made,” Obama said.

He said that there will be plenty of time to scrutinize the trade agreements when they’re actually put before the public.

“There are bad ways of doing trade agreements as well, and ultimately all of these things will have to be subjected to scrutiny in the light of day, but no point in getting excited about potential provisions in trade agreements that haven’t been drafted yet,” he said.

“But I guarantee you we’re going to be working hard to make sure that environmental protections, consumer protections that are already in place — that those are strengthened,” he said.

Obama also pointed out that a trade agreement could help with the situation with Ukraine and Russia over natural resources. 

“Once a trade agreement is in place, export licenses for projects, including liquefied natural gas destined to Europe would be much easier, “something that’s obviously relevant in today’s geopolitical climate,” he said.