TTIP: EU offered 97% cut on US tariffs, secret papers show

The TTIP negotiations entered a decisive phase on 15 October 2015. That’s when US and EU negotiators laid their cards on the table, exchanging offers for tariff reductions. Up until then, the US had only broached hypothetical reductions; now they were openly offering to reduce 87.5 percent of all tariffs to zero.

That was more than the EU expected. European negotiators had to come up with a better offer or risk derailing the deal. A week later, they came up with a new deal: cutting 97 p...