Round Of Negotiations Research Articles

Regionalism or Multilateralism: Evidence from India

With an impasse at Doha round of negotiations, many countries started to change their course of economic liberalization from generic policies of multilateralism to regional trade agreements (RTAs). In this scenario, India plausibly lacks the presence and will of concluding such agreements with some of its major trading partners while being sceptical about the existing ones. Using structural gravity, this study has quantified the impact of country-specific globalization levels and RTAs on international trade among India and its 32 major trading partners. Unlike a plethora of studies employing the gravity model on Indian trade policy issues, we have made use of many recent advancements in gravity modelling. Our methodology robust to the use of intra-national trade data, two alternative estimators, and multiple scenarios naturally addresses the endogeneity issues that are prominent with trade policy variables like RTAs. The empirical results reveal that RTAs have a comparatively strong impact in promoting trade among sample countries. However, country-specific globalization levels measured by the KOF globalization index have a very negligible impact on promoting trade among sample countries. Furthermore, we have obtained very slight asymmetries across the impact of country-specific globalization levels on exports versus imports of mid-income countries with high-income countries. JEL Codes: F1, F14, F15, F60, F68

Trade strategy of European Union and the impact of EU-South Korea FTA

When the global financial erupted, European Union (EU) had suffered from unprecedented economic downturn. Unemployment soared and consumption declined, causing negative effects on Europes per capita income growth. EU then started to realize the need for the utilization of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), to alleviate the low growth trend of European economy. As the first initiative of EU Global Strategy, which was intended to significantly expand EUs export markets to offshore countries through FTAs, South Korea was selected as one of the first targets. After eight rounds of FTA negotiations started from 2006, FTA between EU and South Korea came into effect in 2011. Using UN Comtrades export and import data from 2000 to 2017, this paper discusses about changes in trade patterns of EU and South Korea before and after the EU-South Korea FTA, and empirically analyzes the impact of EU-South Korea FTA. The results of our regression models show that the FTA indeed has positive effects on growth of both trade volume and trade share in the world, between South Korea and the EU, with significance. The fact that there were increases not only in commodity trade, but also in service goods trade and foreign direct investment suggests that the virtuous cycle of EU-South Korea FTA can expand to related areas. Furthermore, as South Korea is East Asias FTA-centered country which signed FTAs with both US and China, the two largest economies in the world, the indirect benefits from the EU-South Korea FTA will become greater for the EU. This advantage is expected to help creating a virtuous cycle that induces economic growth of EU through increases in trade, productivity, and job creation.

The Effect of WTO Membership on Service Sector Trade Liberalization

A large portion of labor and trade in most countries is devoted to the service sector, and thus service sector impacts are crucial to a full understanding of the effects of WTO membership. The effect of WTO membership on trade volume has been subject to debate in the past, but critically, these studies have failed to examine service sector trade specifically. Conventional wisdom would seem to suggest that WTO membership should have boosted services trade, particularly after the implementation of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) in 1995. However, the relationship has yet to be rigorously tested. Here, I use data comprising 178 countries across a span ranging from 1995 until 2015 to examine the impact that WTO membership, and specifically WTO accession, has had on service sector trade levels relative to goods trade levels after the adoption of GATS. Statistical tests yield weak evidence for any significant relationship between WTO membership and service sector trade, with some possible exceptions for states that underwent many rounds of negotiations. This exception is explored further through a comparison of the WTO accessions of China and Vietnam. However, even in these extreme cases, it is difficult to find clear evidence of service sector liberalization. Overall, the findings imply that, in almost all cases, WTO rules and accessions have underemphasized service sector trade in favor of agricultural and goods trade, generating lopsided impacts to trade efficiency.

The First of the Modern Ottomans: The Intellectual History of Ahmed Vasif by Ethan Menchinger

Reviewed by: The First of the Modern Ottomans: The Intellectual History of Ahmed Vasif by Ethan Menchinger Dženita Karić Ethan Menchinger, The First of the Modern Ottomans: The Intellectual History of Ahmed Vasif (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2017). Pp. 356. $103.99 cloth. Ethan Menchinger's monograph The First of the Modern Ottomans: The Intellectual History of Ahmed Vasif is an impressive and ambitious biography of one of the key, yet neglected figures of the eighteenth-century Ottoman administrative and intellectual scene: Ahmed Vâsıf (d. 1806), chancery officer and court historian. The book not only follows Vâsif's personal and professional trajectory in detail but also provides insightful analysis of the intellectual discussions and wider political and social context of a turbulent period. Thus, through the biography of Ahmed Vâsıf and Menchinger's powerful narration, we are drawn into the complex Ottoman world of the eighteenth century and its military, bureaucratic, and intellectual dealings. The book moves progressively from the beginnings of Vâsıf's life through eight chapters: "Out of the East: Early Life (ca. 1735–1768)"; "At War (1768–1774)"; "Years of Faction and Reform (1774–1787)"; "Honorable Exile: In Spain (1787–1788)"; "At War (1788–1792)"; "Vâsıf and the New Order (1792–1800)"; "The Height of Fame (1800–1806)"; and "Epilogue: Vâsıf as Ancient and Modern." The book also contains a Dramatis Personae, a chronology, a glossary, and an appendix that discusses Vâsıf's potential authorship of the "Final Word to Refute the Rabble" (Hulâsatü'l-Kelâm fî Reddi'l-'Avamm), a treatise that aimed to dispel misconceptions of the reforms of Sultan Selim III. As the chapter titles suggest, much of Vâsıf's life and career was marked by the frequent wars in which the Ottomans engaged and by his rise to service as a high-ranked Ottoman official. In many ways, Ahmed Vâsıf's life presents the "Ottoman dream" story: hailing from Baghdad, which by Vâsıf's time had been reduced to a provincial city, Vâsıf climbed the scholarly and administrative ranks partly supported by his family background (his father was a minor scholar), but much more by the relentlessly ambitious nature that led him to a continuous pursuit of posts and social status. Ahmed Vâsıf's career was thus marked by mobility, both social and physical, as he served the Ottoman Empire from the battlefronts on the Danube, to imprisonment in St. Petersburg, to posts and exile in Spain and Belgrade. Ahmed Vâsıf's administrative rank steadily rose: he began as a treasury scribe and rose through the positions of private secretary to Abaza Mehmed Paşa, clerk in the correspondence office, military secretary, fortifications officer, director of the outer documentation office, court historian (several times), galley scribe, temporary head of the suspended payments office, ambassador to Spain, head of the Anatolian accounts office (several times), head of the general accounts office, chief of the daily ledger, and chancellor (several times)—to his highest position, chief scribe. As Menchinger's painstaking attention to detail in numerous sources makes clear, Ahmed Vâsıf also engaged in a range of other pursuits. He was a poet and lexicographer and an "inordinately vain" editor of court histories (173); he was also active in many aspects of the printing process. Wide-ranging as were his travels, the most significant locale of Vâsıf's aspirations was certainly Istanbul, where he steadily sought both to influence Ottoman foreign politics and to amass wealth. Menchinger positions Ahmed Vâsıf against the background of a larger canvas of the eighteenth century, which saw increased Ottoman struggles with other [End Page 411] European powers and numerous territorial losses that forced the Ottoman Empire into rounds of negotiations and prolonged reassessments of its own internal affairs. Moreover, according to Menchinger's research, these self-assessments extended to reexamination of the ideological foundations of the Empire itself. In this regard, the major questions posed by intellectuals regarded realities of war and peace in the face of predestined eternity of the Ottoman Empire: how were...

1989: «Great Turning Point» or «Rotten Compromise». Poles' Memory of the Collapse of the Communist System

The article discusses the events in Poland of 1989, specifically of the Round Table Negotiations and the elections of June the 4th 1989. A short overview of the 1980s that led to the fall of communist regime is presented, and main representatives of historiographic production devoted to this topic are laid out, with some controversies as well. Much attention is devoted to variations of memory of that events. The division of political scenery today runs mostly along the same lines which divide different memories of 1989.

The Effect of WTO Membership on Service Sector Trade Liberalization

A large portion of labor and trade in most countries is devoted to the service sector, and thus service sector impacts are crucial to a full understanding of the effects of WTO membership. The effect of WTO membership on trade volume has been subject to debate in the past, but critically, these studies have failed to examine service sector trade specifically. Conventional wisdom would seem to suggest that WTO membership should have boosted services trade, particularly after the implementation of the GATS in 1995. However, the relationship has yet to be rigorously tested. Here, I use data comprising 178 countries across a span ranging from 1995 until 2015 to examine the impact that WTO membership, and specifically WTO accession, has had on service sector trade levels relative to goods trade levels after the adoption of GATS. Statistical tests yield weak evidence for any significant relationship between WTO membership and service sector trade, with some possible exceptions for states that underwent many rounds of negotiations. This exception is explored further through a comparison of the WTO accessions of China and Vietnam. However, even in these extreme cases, it is difficult to find clear evidence of service sector liberalization. Overall, the findings imply that, in almost all cases, WTO rules and accessions have underemphasized service sector trade in favor of agricultural and goods trade, generating lopsided impacts to trade efficiency.

Access to medicines for rare diseases: regulatory aspects and public health priorities.

In the last decades, the development of drugs for rare diseases has been supported by regulatory and financial incentives. On the other hand, public health policies have increasingly taken into account the person affected by a rare disease in their strategies. In this perspective, we examined the relation between the regulatory framework on rare diseases and the regulatory framework on drug approval. Technical proposals have been brought forward to protect the needs of individuals. The legislative framework on rare diseases has developed both at a European and national level with the aim to strengthen the network of centers for diagnosis and care by increasing the degree of social and health protection, as well as to accelerate the assessment, approval and access to new drugs. Since 2000, 210 orphan drugs have been approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) (compared to an estimated 7-8,000 rare diseases). Of the 118 orphan drugs active in the community register as of 2020, 97 (82.2%) were available in Italy: 17 (17.5%) in class A; 58 (59.8%) in class H; 12 (12.4%) in class C; 10 (10.3%) in class C-nn. In 2020, expenditure on drugs with an orphan indication accounted for 6% of the total pharmaceutical expenditure (+47% since 2016). These drugs have benefited from incentives at both European and national levels, as well as inclusion in national early access programs. However, the average duration of the assessment process is above the 100-day limit set by law. The legislation on rare diseases has developed in different directions, and drug legislation has undoubtedly played a major role in terms of the results achieved. However, orphan drugs enter the market with a high price, which increasingly represents a problem of sustainability for health systems but notwithstanding Italy shows a high ratio between the level of social protection and access times. In this perspective, it is necessary to be provided with tools for a better system balance with a view to optimize these timeframes. Introducing in Italy a system for tracking the negotiation process that considers the clock stops as the EMA does, would allow to know at what point the negotiation process is. In addition, once the 100-day period is over (net of any clock stops) and in case of failure to reach a negotiation agreement, a second 60-day negotiation round could be proposed and so on. In this way, all the parts involved the system would have a clear scope of action to conclude the process in a flexible but certain timeframe. In this regard, the joint clinical assessments foreseen by the new HTA Regulations provide an additional opportunity to harmonize central decisions with national requirements.

Russian-Polish relations before the first Crimean campaign. Alexander Skop’s diplomatic trip to Moscow at the beginning of 1687

The article focuses on the Russian-Polish negotiations on the develop-ment of a joint plan for military operations shortly after the conclusion of the Eternal Peace and Alliance. The Commonwealth counted on Russian support during the campaign against Moldavia in the summer-autumn of 1686, but did not receive it sufficiently. The Russian government at the same moment was entirely engaged in the preparing of the first Crimean campaign. The new round of negotiations between Moscow and Warsaw took place at the end of 1686 — the beginning of 1687. The Polish diplo-macy intended to review and to refine plans of the military cooperation to achieve its own goals in the most effective way. John Sobieski’s mili-tary plan consisted of three phases. At first, Russian army was to march to the lower Dnepr to storm Ottoman fortresses located there, Ochakov and Kinburn, and possibly Azov, then to help the Polish-Lithuanian troops to defeat the Belgorod Horde and to seize Budzhak, and finally to invade the Crimean Peninsula, with the support of the king’s troops. Should the plan have been fulfilled, the Russian government would have gained some tactical benefits, but the Muscovite commander, prince Vasilij Golitsyn refused to accept it. The reason for the refusal was the intention of the Russian side in the current military campaign to exert military and political pressure primarily on the Crimean Khanate, with-out inflicting serious blows on the possessions of the Ottoman Empire in the Black Sea region.

“Solar” cases: could Italy’s withdrawal from the Energy Charter Treaty lead to its collapse?

The article notes that investments in solar energy have already led to a number of arbitration cases related to the subsequent change in investment incentives. The so-called Solar Cases, initiated by investors under the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) against Kingdom Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic, focused on the question of whether states could adjust incentives (subsidies and feed-in tariffs) to the detriment of investors after these investors relied on these subsidies to make their investments. Following the results of these arbitration proceedings, the European Union in 2019 decided to revise the text of the ECT. Eight rounds of negotiations were held during 2020 and 2021, the last of which took place in November 2021. Many believe that the reform of the existing treaty has taken too long. In February 2021, France sent a letter to the European Commission on the need for a coordinated EU exit from the ECT. Against this background, Italy’s withdrawal from the ECT on January 1, 2016, as well as Russia’s withdrawal of the signature on the treaty in 2018, are actions that determine the inevitable collapse of the ECT in the very near future. This article is devoted to the study of the causes and legal consequences of these events. Since Russia’s withdrawal from the ECT has already been the subject of study by many Russian and foreign scholars, the author focused their attention on the study of Italian arbitration disputes based on the ECT provisions, as well as on the study of foreign doctrine on this issue.

The Next Target: Amending the Amending Procedure

The end of WW1 caused the origin of the “South Tyrolean question” represented by the status of the German speaking population since ever living in the territory that had been annexed to the Kingdom of Italy first and then to the Italian Republic. However, the Paris Peace Treaty included the Degasperi-Gruber Agreement that established an international obligation to safeguard the culture of the language minority and to grant them legislative and administrative autonomy. Initially the obligation was not implemented in conformity to the Agreement. A new round of negotiations eventually led to a new fundamental normative setting of the Provinces of Bolzano/South Tyrol and Trentino within a Region with a marginal role (1972). The method of negotiation has proved historically to carry on a positive outcome and in fact it has been introduced and applied also to the purpose of managing some vital contents of the relationship between the provincial and state authorities. The basic source of the autonomy must be approved by a constitutional act adopted by the national Parliament and no participatory role by the two Provinces is constitutionally safeguarded, although such participation has so far always been acknowledged by practice. But practice is an insufficient safeguard in the current political context that is not favorable to any of the Regions with a special autonomy. The paper suggests an amendment to the present rules concerning the amending procedure that should be the priority before facing the substantive reforms that are much needed for ensuring a good governance of the system.

North Korea’s Entrapment and Time Delay Tactics during Nuclear Negotiations

Weaker parties in a negotiation can change the assumed structural outcome of the negotiation by using strategies such as time delay tactics, which lead to entrapment. In this article, the Six-Party Talks are evaluated empirically to explore the utility of applying this bargaining tactic insight into international relations. The article applies Galin’s (2015) five stages of time delay tactics to the fifth and sixth rounds of the Six-Party Talks, with a focus on the triangular relations between the United States, South Korea, and North Korea. The article shows how North Korea as the weaker negotiating party used the time delay tactic to affect the fifth and sixth rounds of the Six-Party negotiations in its favor. North Korea’s use of several tactics included slowing down negotiations as much as possible, avoiding reaching a final agreement, prolonging negotiations by diversion, dragging out the negotiation process until some external or internal change occurs,⋯

India–European Union Trade Integration: An Analysis of Current and Future Trajectories

In a dynamic global environment of increased economic interdependence, nations are more than ever seeking to remove barriers to trade, despite growing trends of protectionism. In this context, India and the EU-27 have initiated talks for the establishment of a Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA) in an attempt to bring their economies together. However, after 16 rounds of negotiations, the failure to conclude this agreement has raised questions regarding the benefits of the agreement to India. This study attempts to examine the current trade scenario and the effects of the proposed regional trade agreement by estimating a structural gravity model. This study employs the Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML) estimator for analysing the trade-creation and trade-diversion effects of the BTIA to overcome the shortcomings of ordinary least square (OLS) estimators. For the empirical analysis, the merchandise export data from the Gravity database has been taken for a period of 19 years from 2001 to 2019. The results indicate that the BTIA could lead to trade creation and trade diversion, highlighting the need for a re-evaluation of India’s trade policy. JEL Classification: F10, F13, F14, F15, O24

Domestic Dynamics on Foreign Policy: India's Withdrawal from Regional Comprehensive Partnership Agreement (RCEP) Negotiations

India’s decision to withdraw from Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) has been one of the shocking event in the development of international trade. Not only obstructing many regionalist agenda between India and the whole of Asia-Pacific region, this decision is considered to be in the exact opposite of India’s attempts to direct its foreign policy towards its eastern neighbours, especially on the East and Southeast Asia, through India’s participations in several free trade agreements. This thesis will attempt to explain India’s withdrawal from RCEP negotiation by looking at domestic factors. It argues that domestic pressures are the main factors for India to withdraw from RCEP’s negotiation rounds. In this research, the author will use conceptual framework developed by Thomas Risse-Kappen to classify the influences of domestic actors on foreign policy of a country based on its political system and societal groups to understand more the influences of domestic actors to Indian foreign policy. This research also shows that apart from domestic stakeholders perceptions that the country’s membership in the RCEP doesn’t benefit their economic interests, huge pressures came especially from Hindu nationalist groups, especially from Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), as the core mass support of the current government’s party under the premiership of Narendra Modi (Bharatiya Janata Party – BJP), has been one of the major domestic pressures to understand the roots on India’s withdrawal from RCEP’s negotiation rounds.

Provisions on establishing rights to scent trademark of the US and European Union law - Experience for Vietnam

Based on the perspective of analyzing the provisions of the laws of the United States and the laws of the European Union, as well as the practice of protecting non-traditional trademarks in the United States and the European Union, in particular intellectual property rights to the Scent trademark, proposals are made for Vietnam in the process of completing legal provisions, processes, methods of assessment and establishing the rights of Scent trademark rights to meet the global trend and domestic law requirements under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership's commitments. Accordingly, in the negotiation rounds of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (the precursor of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership), the parties participating in the negotiation often disagree on the scope of protection of intellectual property rights, and non-traditional trademarks, sound trademarks, scent trademarks in particular. This is also one of the important reasons for the failure of negotiations and the withdrawal from the US Agreement. Besides, in the future, intellectual property rights and trademark rights, non-traditional trademarks in particular, will continue to be important negotiating topics that determine the success of the new generation of the free trade agreement. Therefore, the early improvement of the legal system in the establishment and protection of the rights to this object contributes to helping Vietnam be more active in negotiation.

Diversity in Renovation Design: Theoretical Foundations of the Renovation Domain Model

AbstractSustainable building renovation design is a highly challenging and ever more pressing issue in the construction sector. Through rounds of dialogue and negotiation, architects along with div...

Transparency and accountability in the negotiation of the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement: the case of pharmaceuticals

BackgroundTransparency and accountability are essential components at all stages of the trade negotiation process. This study reports on the findings of an evaluation of the United States' public consultation process during the re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)/United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) with respect to medicines and the pharmaceutical sector. MethodsA desk review was conducted to map the US negotiation rounds of the USMCA. Then, opportunities for the public to receive information and provide feedback about the proposed agreement provisions were identified. Finally, the written comments submitted by stakeholders during this public consultation process to the Federal Register (Regulations.gov) were queried and analysed using qualitative data analysis software NVivo for language related to pharmaceuticals and medicine. FindingsThe public consultation process occurred before the start of official negotiations. It was overseen by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) and included both written comments and oral testimony about US negotiation objectives. There were no further official opportunities for the public to engage with the negotiation process. Of the 1458 comments publicly available through the Federal Register, 75 specifically discussed issues related to pharmaceuticals for human use. More than 50% of submissions received from members or affiliates of the pharmaceutical industry advocated for strengthened pharmaceutical intellectual property rights, greater regulatory data protection, or both. Nearly all submissions from non-industry groups indicated that access to, or the affordability of, medicines was a priority issue area in the renegotiated agreement. Most submissions that directly discussed transparency and accountability were authored by industry groups and emphasised the importance of predictability and transparency in the areas of pharmaceutical intellectual property, regulatory affairs, pricing, and reimbursement to facilitate greater innovation. InterpretationUSMCA increased regulatory data protection for innovator drugs, increased the period of regulatory exclusivity for biologics, and granted patent term restoration provisions for regulatory delays, undermining public access to medicines. Although industry comments only constitute 26% of the comments submitted during the US public consultation period related to pharmaceuticals, they reflect the dominant position adopted in the USMCA. FundingConnaught Fund Global Health Challenge Award.

'Stretching the Imagination': Geographical Indications in the EU-Australia FTA Negotiations

The launch of negotiations for an EU-Australia 'free trade agreement' (FTA) on 18 June 2018 was a confirmation of a 'like-minded' strong partnership, in which both parties had high hopes for an ambitious agreement which would test the new wave of protectionism promoted by Donald Trump.Nonetheless, the initial rounds of negotiations revealed several issues which illustrate the scale of the challenge to be addressed. One such example was the issue of Geographical Indications (GI). The EU and its member states adopt an approach which is highly regulated and prescriptive to safeguard the authenticity of its produce and encourage rural development. Australia approaches this kind of intellectual property issue via a trademark system as well as a sui generis system to better capture the benefits of innovation. This paper analyses the challenges and opportunities an accord on GI's could have for both regions, as revealed in the context of the EU-Australia negotiations. The paper claims that while an agreement on GI's was a significant outcome for the overall FTA, the process adopted by the EU and Australia was in itself a reflection of the ambition for an amicable, dynamic and innovative negotiating process.

Third Revised Draft Treaty on Business and Human Rights: Comments and Recommendations

The 3rd revised draft of the legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises, was published in August, by the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG), established in 2014 by the UN Human Rights Council, under Resolution 26/9, for the elaboration of the treaty. The text is based on a series of consultations and inter-State negotiations that have taken place since 2014. This policy brief is written as an external contribution to the new round of negotiations over the text taking place in the Human Rights Council in Geneva, from 25 to 29 October 2021. It is in part informed by an expert exchange between academics and civil society organisations held on 7 October at the Asser Institute in The Hague. The current brief is not an exhaustive response to the various revisions made in the third draft but focuses on three questions at the heart of treaty: prevention and due diligence; liability and regulation; and access to remedy. While numerous political controversies surround the treaty, our focus is on analysing its utility, were it adopted, in responding to corporate human rights abuses. As we believe that the main parameters of the treaty are relatively settled, our feedback focuses on suggestions consistent with the current paradigm. The first section of the brief focuses on the areas of incoherence within the third revised draft. The second section proposes recommendations going forward.

THE PEACE PROCESS IN AFGHANISTAN

This article reflects the retrospective, current situation and perspective of the peace regulation process in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The aim of the work is to analyze the development of the situation in the most unstable country located at the junction of three regions – Central Asia, Middle East and South Asia. The article analyzes the progress of the peace process, the main political players and mediators, as well as obstacles to peace in Afghanistan. Step by step negotiation progress, the issues and aspects has been demonstrated to achieve peace. Different personalities have been indicated who play a key role in the beginning of the long-awaited inter-Afghan dialogue. The preliminary results of the first rounds of negotiations were summarized, which resulted in forecasting further development of the situation.

Tr ansatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership: Consigned to Oblivion or Waiting for a Second Chance?

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the U.S. and the EU could have become a milestone of the 2010s transforming the current global governance system and the strategic balance of power as well as having a direct impact on the economy and trade. Nevertheless, the negotiations launched in 2013 reached a stalemate and were effectively frozen in January 2017. Although assessments of the new mega bloc’s impact on the U.S. and the EU economies diverged, such a development seems all the more unexpected given that most researchers and politicians advocating the initiative emphasized its geopolitical significance for the West in the face of China’s rise. A question inevitably arises: what can account for the freeze of negotiations? Was it the result of Donald Trump’s election, who was a vocal critic of his predecessor’s legacy during his election campaign? Or are there underlying objective reasons? In order to shed light on the issue it is necessary to analyse the differences that emerged during the fifteen rounds of negotiations as well as to examine the most recent developments in transatlantic trade and economic relations. Trump’s foreign policy sought to advance U.S. national interests in such a way that resulted in weakening multilateral elimination of tariff s for industrial goods and for an agreement on conformity assessment. However, negotiations of the former agreement did not start a year after the Joint Statement had been adopted; there were three meetings of the Executive Working Group focusing on regulatory issues. Apparently, an agreement similar to TTIP in scope is unlikely to be concluded in the near future. It also becomes evident that the parties’ divergent goals and interests at the negotiations rather than subjective factors, such as Donald Trump’s approach, are the main reason for that. Continuing dialogue between the U.S. and the EU on specific issues, e.g. regulation, seems a more viable scenario. Keywords: U.S., EU, trade negotiations, TTIP, transatlantic trade, globalisation, global governance, economic diplomacy, industrial goods, conformity assessment, regulation, tariff and non-tariff barriers.institutions: in 2018 the EU and a number of states became targets of U.S. aluminium and steel tariff s purportedly imposed to protect national security. These unilateral measures turned into leverage ahead of negotiations. In June 2018 the U.S. and the EU issued a Joint Statement: the parties agreed to ‘work together toward zero tariffs, zero non-tariff barriers, and zero subsidies on non-auto industrial goods.’ In April 2019 the Council of the European Union adopted two decisions authorising the opening of negotiations of an agreement with the United States of America on the elimination of tariff s for industrial goods and for an agreement on conformity assessment. However, negotiations of the former agreement did not start a year after the Joint Statement had been adopted; there were three meetings of the Executive Working Group focusing on regulatory issues. Apparently, an agreement similar to TTIP in scope is unlikely to be concluded in the near future. It also becomes evident that the parties’ divergent goals and interests at the negotiations rather than subjective factors, such as Donald Trump’s approach, are the main reason for that. Continuing dialogue between the U.S. and the EU on specific issues, e.g. regulation, seems a more viable scenario.