EU-US trade deal ‘should result in thousands of jobs’

Thousands of jobs and a significant addition to the country’s wealth should come from a EU-US trade agreement, offering opportunities to Irish SMEs as well as multi-national business, according to Enterprise, Trade and Innovation Minister Richard Bruton.

The EU and the US announced they had after 18 months of talks agreed to start negotiations on what will be the world’s biggest ever free trade agreement, eliminating barriers between the two blocs that between them account for almost half the world’s trade.

But almost as soon as the announcement was made, the first cracks appeared in the discussions with the EU saying that issues like genetically modified organism s and hormone beef would not be part of the package, and the Americans saying everything was on the table.