BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday criticised plans by US President-elect Donald Trump to ditch a trans-Pacific trade deal, warning that future agreements will likely be worse. With a planned US-EU mega-deal called TTIP also looking doomed, Merkel predicted that in future “there will be more trade agreements, and they won’t have the standard which this agreement and the mooted TTIP deal have”. “I tell you quite honestly, I am not happy that the trans-Pacific agreement will now probably not become a reality,” said Merkel. “Because we listened to this criticism, today there are trade deals that have a completely new quality, and CETA is the first that has this new quality,” said Merkel, referring to an EU-Canada deal signed last month. “And a free trade agreement with the United States would have only been possible if it had the same standard of quality,” the chancellor told the German parliament.

Source: Manila Times November 23, 2016 11:30 UTC