Skip to content
openDemocracy
Sign in Subscribe

TTIP: Secret document reveals EU offer to drop 97 percent of tariffs

Confidential documents from the EU-US trade talks show the EU is offering to drop almost all trade tariffs with the USA, exposing European firms to unprecedented competition.

By Justus von Daniels and Marta Orosz
Published:
Share
TTIP_protest_in_London.jpg
TTIP_protest_in_London.jpg

TTIP protest in London. Global Justice Now, some rights reserved.

We now know that the TTIP negotiations entered a decisive phase on October 15, 2015. That’s when US and EU representatives laid their cards on the table, exchanging offers to cut taxes on imports from each other. Up until then, the US had only broached hypothetical reductions; now they were openly offering to remove 87.5 percent of tariffs completely.

That was more than the EU expected. European negotiators had to agree a better offer, or risk derailing the deal. A week later, they did came up with a new proposal: reductions in 97 percent of tariff categories.

This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. If you have any queries about republishing please contact us. Please check individual images for licensing details.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0