A U.N. panel of experts has been discussing whether the United States should leave China, a major trading partner for the world’s second-largest economy.
The panel, which includes U.K. Ambassador to the United Nations Matthew Rycroft and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, is expected to make its recommendations to the U,S.
and the other six Pacific Rim countries involved in the trade talks.
China’s trade surplus with the United Kingdom has fallen to $7.3 billion last year from $20.3bn in 2014, according to the International Monetary Fund.
“This is the biggest challenge to the TPP, but it is a challenge that the U and the U.-S.
are taking on,” Rycroft told Bloomberg TV.
The trade deal between the United states and 11 other nations, which is being negotiated in secret by the European Union, aims to liberalize trade between the world of goods and services and the Pacific Rim.
Rycroft, who is also the director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, is a member of the panel, and he said the panel is considering whether the U should leave the deal.
The U.s. has already left the deal, he said.
“There is a big difference between leaving a deal and leaving a dead end.”
The U-K., which is also a member and a big trading partner of the United Sates, is also on the panel.
Rycraft said he hopes the panel will recommend the U to leave.
He said the United is “on a collision course” with China over trade.
“It’s a question of how far the U is willing to go,” Rycraft told Bloomberg.
Ryburns comments come as Trump and other Republican lawmakers have repeatedly raised the possibility of ending the trade deal.
But Rycroft has said he has not heard a “yes” or “no” from the administration, and the White House has not responded to his comments.
Trump, however, has repeatedly said he will renegotiate the pact, and Rycroft said in an interview last week with CNBC that the trade pact is “not a free ride.”
The panel is expected in December to deliver its final recommendations on whether to accept the deal’s terms or to reject them.
Rysells comments came as the panel’s members were asked by Bloomberg if they think the U-S.
should leave.
“I would not say we should,” said the British ambassador to the European Commission, Matthew Ryburn.
“The panel is working on the recommendations, so I don’t know where the U stands on that,” he said, adding that it is “the panel that should be making those recommendations.”
Rycroft’s comments come after a number of Republican lawmakers in Congress on Thursday said they would support leaving the TPP.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who is the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said he is working with his colleagues on the committee to “renegotiate the agreement” but he was not ready to commit to a vote.
“Our position is not clear on that at this point,” Rubio said.
The two sides are in the midst of a trade war, as the U sides own a trade surplus of more than $150 billion with the U., and the United sides own about $130 billion in trade deficits with the rest of the world.
In a joint statement, the U’s Trade Representative said it is working “to make progress” in resolving trade issues and that the United remains committed to maintaining free trade with all its trading partners.
The TPP is expected, if the trade agreement fails to get a vote in the Senate, to come up for a vote on the White Senate agenda in February.
The White House said in January that the administration was not interested in negotiating a new agreement with China and said it was confident that the TPP could be negotiated.
