Photo: AP/dpaThe United States' new hostility to free trade deals under President Donald Trump is benefiting the European Union, the bloc's top trade official told German media on Tuesday. After Trump's withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal in late January, "many countries are now turning to us, because they believe protectionism is not the right answer," European Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom told German business newspaper Handelsblatt. As among the American public, growing distrust of trade deals has made itself felt in Europe. EU officials only just managed to get the CETA trade deal with Canada approved by the bloc's parliaments in October, after last-minute horse-trading with the Belgian region of Wallonia. One way of creating more support for trade deals could be "demystifying" them by making negotiators' mandates public, she suggested.

Source: The Local February 21, 2017 10:18 UTC