Speaking at the White House on Wednesday following a meeting with European Commission president Jean Claude Juncker on trade, US president Donald Trump said both the EU and US will work to reduce barriers and increase trade in services, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, medical products as well as soya beans.

Soya beans are a “big deal”, the US president said. There are no details yet on the amount of soya beans the EU will import.

“The European Union is going to start, almost immediately, to buy a lot of soya beans from our farmers in the midwest primarily.

“This will open markets for farmers and workers, increase investment and lead to greater prosperity in both the United States and the European Union. It will also make trade fairer and more reciprocal,” he said.

Zero tariffs

The EU and US also agreed to work together towards zero tariffs, zero non-tariff barriers and zero subsidies on non-auto industrial goods.

“We agreed to strengthen our strategic co-operation with respect to energy. The EU wants to import more liquified natural gas (LNG) from the US and they’re going to be a very big buyer.

“We’re going to make it much easier, but they’re going to be a massive buyer of LNG. So they’ll be able to diversify their energy supply,” he said.

We made a deal

Commenting after the meeting, the European Commission president said: “When I was invited by the president to White House, I had one intention. An intention to make a deal today and we made a deal.

“We have identified a number of areas on which to work together. Work towards zero tariffs on industrial goods, that was my main intention. We’ve decided to strengthen our co-operation on energy. We will build more terminals to import liquefied natural gas from the US. We agreed to establish a dialogue on standards.

“As far as agriculture is concerned, the European Union can import more soya beans from the US and it will be done,” he said.

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