A U.S.-EU Trade Deal Will Not Have a Measurable Impact on Growth

The NYT implied that politicians in the United States and Europe are pushing a trade deal because they want to boost growth in a prolonged period of stagnation. This is not plausible.

Even optimistic projections of the impact of a trade deal show that it would only increase GDP by around 1.0 percent. This increase would only be felt after the changes in the agreement are fully phased in which will almost certainly be more than a decade. The implication is that the impact on annual growth will...