EU, U.S. to commit to remove all duties on transatlantic trade
U.S. President Barack Obama and European Union leaders will promise to remove all tariffs on bilateral trade at a summit on March 26, an ambitious step towards the world's largest free-trade deal, according to a draft statement seen by Reuters. | The joint declaration, if delivered as laid out in the draft, seeks to overcome tensions following Washington's offer to cut its duties by less than the Europeans had hoped for and after Brussels pledged to remove almost all of its own tariffs. "The EU and the United States are firmly committed to concluding a comprehensive and ambitious Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership," the draft statement reads, referring to U.S.-EU free-trade talks by their official name. "Those goals include eliminating all duties on bilateral goods trade," says the statement, which will be delivered at the end of the day-long summit in Brussels. The statement is subject to further negotiations with the United States.
Paul Craig Roberts: Washington is making war inevitable (The Failure Of German Leadership)
Johannes Stern & Alex Lantier ■ Germany threatens “massive damage” to Russia ahead of Crimea referendum || With staggering hypocrisy, Merkel is standing reality on its head. It is Germany and the US that are acting as the aggressors, backing and organizing a putsch led by fascist groups in Ukraine, the descendants of political forces Nazi Germany relied upon to commit horrible crimes during World War II. It doing so, it is the Western powers that are reviving the criminal methods of 20th century imperialist politics to secure their geo-strategic aims in Europe. In its drive for war, the imperialist powers are relying on the most right-wing forces within Ukraine. Now Berlin and Washington want to force Moscow to back down on the question of Crimea, which has a Russian-speaking majority and is home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Merkel warned that the EU would push ahead with economic sanctions unless Moscow agreed to negotiate “in the next few days.” She said: “None of us wishes that it should come to such actions. But we are all ready for them and will decide on them, if they are unavoidable.”