EU lawmakers to resume work on US trade deal after Greenland crisis

EU Trade Deal Negotiations

By Philip Blenkinsop

Background of the Trade Deal

BRUSSELS, Feb 4 (Reuters) - European Union lawmakers decided on Wednesday to resume work on enacting the EU's trade deal with the United States, which they had suspended in protest against President Donald Trump's demands to acquire Greenland and his threats of related tariffs.

Political Implications

The European Parliament's trade committee had been due to vote last month on proposals to remove many EU import duties on U.S. goods under an agreement the bloc struck with Trump in July, as well as maintaining zero duties on U.S. lobsters, initially agreed with Trump in 2020.

Future Steps and Timeline

It put the votes on hold when Trump threatened a wave of new tariffs on European countries that objected to his aim to annex Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark. Trump abruptly withdrew that tariff threat after several days.

Any European move to delay the deal significantly could have angered Trump, who threatened last week to raise tariffs on South Korean exports over what he said was Seoul's failure to enact its side of a trade deal agreed last year.

Social Democrat lawmaker Bernd Lange, a German who chairs the trade committee, said in a social media post that work would resume and that the committee could vote on February 24. The proposals would then need to be approved by the full parliament and EU governments.

Lange told Reuters that the parliament would also back an amendment allowing the EU to suspend the deal if the United States threatened the security interests or territorial integrity of any EU member or if there were new U.S. tariff threats.

Lange said EU lawmakers had also agreed to put in place a sunset clause, although the time period was not yet clear.

If the trade committee votes in late February, final approval would likely still be a month or two away because the parliament and EU governments would first have to negotiate a common text.

Many lawmakers had already complained that the trade deal was lopsided, with the EU required to cut most import duties while the U.S. sticks to a broad rate of 15%. However, they had previously appeared willing to accept it, albeit with conditions.

(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsip, Editing by Charlotte Van Campenhout and Peter Graff)