Ships that pass in the night

LIFE for modern Europeans is marked by endless hardships, not least their inability to buy Hog Island oysters. Farmed in a bay north of San Francisco, these plump, succulent specimens rival anything in Normandy or the Languedoc. Yet there is no transatlantic trade in oysters to speak of. Why? Because of incompatible safety regimes: America tests oyster waters for bacteria while the European Union examines the molluscs themselves. Both methods are sound, but neither side recognises the other’s.

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), an ambitious planned trade deal between America and the EU, is intended to iron out such wrinkles. Unlike classic free-trade arrangements, TTIP focuses on regulatory and other non-tariff barriers, because levies on most products traded across the Atlantic are already close to zero (exceptions include running shoes and fancy chocolate). Negotiators dream of a world in which pharmaceuticals are subject to the same testing regimes, standards on everything from car design to chemical labelling are harmonised or mutually recognised, and the transatlantic oyster trade is finally liberated. The potential benefits are hard to estimate, but one reasonable guess is that an “ambitious” TTIP could raise America’s GDP by 0.4% and the EU’s by slightly more.