“To understand the geopolitics of trade these days just look at the contrasting visits by Barack Obama and Xi Jinping to Europe over the past fortnight.”

“The US and Chinese presidents both arrived in Europe pitching trade as the centrepiece of their trips. The two leaders took very different approaches, however.”

“Mr Obama’s relatively austere four-day visit took in the Netherlands, Brussels and Rome and included a nuclear summit. It was more about working lunches than wooing a Europe that often feels taken for granted by Washington.”

“In its wake some EU officials bemoaned the fact that, although both sides had agreed that trade would be at its centre, Mr Obama had only mentioned the push for an EU-US trade alliance, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, when asked about it at a Brussels press conference.”

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Read full Financial Times article here.