Obama courts Angela Merkel in Germany

Obama ‘confident’ on TTIP as clock runs down

In Germany, the US president also says Angela Merkel is on the ‘right side of history’ in dealing with migration.

By Matthew Karnitschnig

U.S. President Barack Obama said Sunday he was “confident” that an agreement on a sweeping but controversial trade deal with the EU could be reached by the end of this year, as Washington and Berlin redoubled efforts to cinch the pact before he leaves office.

“I am confident that we’re going to be able to get this done,” Obama said in a news conference in Hanover with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “I don’t anticipate that we will complete ratification by the end of the year, but I do anticipate that we can have completed the agreement.”

The president’s reference to “ratification” suggests he will punt the final decision to his successor and the new Congress after he leaves office. Given the growing skepticism about free trade deals on both sides of the Atlantic, Obama’s latest endorsement of TTIP, as the transatlantic trade pact is known, is far from a guarantee that it will ever be completed. Obama acknowledged those challenges in his opening address to the Hanover Trade Fair.

“Time is not on our side,” he told an audience of senior German politicians and industry chiefs. “If we don’t make progress this year, then upcoming political transitions in the United States and Europe will [result] in this agreement not being finished for quite some time.”

A day before Obama’s arrival in Hanover, an industrial hub in western Germany, tens of thousands of TTIP opponents took to the streets to protest the deal. Those against the deal argue it would dilute European standards on everything from food to jurisprudence. About one-third of Germans say they are against the trade pact.

Though TTIP is little known in the U.S., free trade has become a hot-button issue in the presidential campaign as Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have blamed past agreements for the loss of industrial jobs in America.

Acknowledging that the benefits of free trade “are often diffuse,” Obama used his speech to counter the arguments of TTIP opponents on both sides of the Atlantic.

“TTIP will not lower standards, it will raise standards even higher: high standards protecting workers, high standards protecting consumers, to give them more choices, high standards for the environment,” he said.

U.S. and European trade officials have been negotiating TTIP for years. While they’ve made substantial progress in recent months, they have yet to bridge differences in key areas such as agriculture and dispute resolution. A new round of talks, the 13th, is scheduled to begin on Monday in New York.

Merkel, who in past months has largely avoided the subject of TTIP, echoed Obama’s sales pitch on Sunday.

“From a European perspective [TTIP] is absolutely helpful to boost our economy in Europe,” Merkel said. “It’s good for the German economy, it’s good for the entire European economy…we should hurry up.”

Earlier in the day, Obama and Merkel discussed a range of challenges facing the U.S. and Europe, including the humanitarian crisis in Syria, the fight against ISIL and political instability in Libya. They also addressed the ongoing migration crisis in Europe that has been fueled by the unrest in the Middle East.

The U.S. president gave strong backing to Merkel’s handling of the migration issue, saying she has had to “take on some very tough politics” in recent months.

“In Europe, she is on the right side of history on this,” Obama said during the press conference. “It is very difficult for us to simply build walls. She is giving voice to the kind of principles that bring people together rather than divide us.”

Obama arrived in Germany earlier Sunday on the last leg of his European tour, a trip he is using to bolster transatlantic ties and bid farewell as the end of his presidency nears. He and Merkel were scheduled to tour the Hanover Fair, the world’s largest industrial fair, Monday morning.

While the official purpose of the trip is to push for deeper econonomic links, the underlying reason for Obama’s visit is to highlight the importance of U.S.-German ties. During his presidency, Berlin has become Washington’s key ally in Europe, in many respects surpassing the U.K. as America’s most important overseas partner.

Obama has relied on Merkel’s leadership in Europe on everything from the financial crisis, to tensions with Russia over the Ukraine to the recent influx of refugees. In the press conference, Obama said “the world benefits from her steady presence.”

At times, the two leaders have found themselves at odds, especially when it came to NSA surveillance programs or the military intervention in Libya. Obama said in the news conference that “it was right thing to do” to intervene in Libya to prevent the “murderous behavior” of the Gadhafi regime but acknowledged that western powers had perhaps not prepared for the aftermath of that intervention “as effectively as we should have.”

Even as they disagreed, Merkel and Obama have stressed the broader dimension of U.S.-German ties and refused to let their differences stand in the way of collaboration on other fronts.

Though it took time for the easygoing Hawaii native and the East German pastor’s daughter to develop personal chemistry, they eventually built up a rapport that transcends their working relationship.

“I consider Angela one of my closest partners and also a friend,” Obama told Germany’s Bild newspaper in an interview published Saturday.

“I’ve worked with her from the moment I took office in the depths of the financial crisis, and we’ve been through a lot together ever since.”

Obama’s visit comes at a difficult moment for Merkel at home. Her decision last fall to allow more than 1 million refugees to come to Europe has divided Germany. As Germans struggle with the challenge of absorbing the new arrivals, Merkel’s approval ratings have plummeted.

Obama has been one of Merkel’s strongest supporters on the refugee question, praising her leadership on the issue as “courageous.”

“She’s demonstrated real political and moral leadership,” he told Bild. “The politics around refugees and immigration is hard in any country, but I believe the best leaders are willing to take on the toughest issues — especially when it’s not easy.”

In addition to meeting Merkel, Obama will also sit down with the leaders of France, Italy and the U.K. on Monday to discuss security threats and how to counter the so-called Islamic State in the wake of recent terrorist attacks in Brussels and Paris.