The Impact of an EU-US TTIP Agreement on Biofuel and Feedstock Markets

We assess the impact of a potential TTIP bilateral free trade agreement on the EU and US bio-economies (feedstock, biofuels, by-products, and related competing crops) and major trade partners in these markets. The analysis develops a multi-market model that incorporates bilateral trade flows (US to EU, EU to US, and similarly with third countries) and is calibrated to OECD-FAO baseline for 2013–2022 to account for recent policy decisions. The major policy reforms from a TTIP involve tariff and TRQ liberalization and their direct contractionary impact on US sugar supply, EU biofuel production, and indirect negative effect on US HFCS production. EU sugar and isoglucose productions expand along with US ethanol and biodiesel and oilseed crushing. EU sugar would flow to the US, US biofuels and vegetable oil to the EU. We further quantify nontariff measures (NTM) affecting these trade flows between the EU and the US. EU oilseed production contracts, and EU crushing expands with improving crushing margins following reduced NTM frictions. Our analysis reveals limited net welfare gains with most net benefits reaped by Brazil and not the two trading partners of the TTIP.