NOTES: Roger Charles suggests that Kinkel's visit to the U.S. here related to a sting operation involving Andreas Strassmeir. Had the sting operation been successful, Kinkel would have been here to meet DOJ officials. Says that b/c sting failed, Kinkel spoke in Chicago then left the country. None of this has been confirmed but is archived here as a lead for posterity. --RB 11/8/21

World Trade News: US cool to Kinkel's Atlantic trade plan

Financial Times [30 Day Embargo] (London, England)
April 20, 1995 | CHRISTOPHER PARKES | Page: 3

FRANKFURT-US officials last night gave a chilly welcome to a plea from Mr Klaus Kinkel, German foreign minister, for negotiations to start on setting up a transatlantic free trade zone embracing Europe and north America.

He told the Chicago Council of Foreign Affairs that the next step after the successful conclusion of the Uruguay Round was the establishment of Tafta, the Trans Atlantic Free Trade Area, which would firmly bind the two continents' destinies and give 'enormous' momentum to the next wave of trade liberalisation.

However, US officials in Germany pointed out that Washington policy-makers had so far been 'by and large indifferent to this idea.' They were currently more concerned about economic ties with growth markets in Asia and elsewhere than with mature markets in Europe.

They were also sceptical about Germany's ability to deliver, particularly in the light of its paradoxical posture as a promoter of free trade which at the same time bent over backwards to placate French protectionists.

'It is a nice idea, but they should not push it if they are not serious,' one said.

For the initiative to be viewed as serious in Washington, Bonn would have to offer convincing arguments that Europe was willing to negotiate in earnest on points of contention old and new, including the common agricultural policy, government procurement contracts and trade in audio-visual products.

According to advance copies of Mr Kinkel's speech released in Germany, he appeared to be prepared to confront Paris at least over films and TV programmes. ' Setting quotas for television-watchers is just as senseless as prescribing which books people may read,' he said.

Despite US scepticism, the minister's intervention appeared a determined attempt to rouse more interest in the rather one-sided debate on the future of relations between the European Union and the US in the post-cold war world.

Urging the US not to turn its back on its international role, he said strong political leadership was more necessary than ever in times of upheaval. ' Leadership. . . must above all come from one country: the US,' he said.

Mr Kinkel saw Tafta as the force behind a new round of global liberalisation which must in no circumstances be seen as bloc-building.

He accepted negotiations would probably take years, but in the meantime there was work to be done on preparing an 'international economic code of conduct' to govern environmental and social issues raised by sharpened competition. However, he insisted, politicisation of world trade had to be avoided.

Mr Kinkel's initiative is the latest development in a debate which has been stirring slowly in Germany for some months following a study by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation on the need to improve transatlantic relations.

The only US interest in the potential of trade in this area has so far come from Mr Jeffrey Garten, US undersecretary of commerce, who told a Berlin meeting last summer that commercial issues had become central to US foreign policy. ' How we handle this aspect of our relationship with Germany will be a driving force for the broader ties we seek in the arenas of politics, security and culture,' he added.