HANOVER, Germany — President Obama said Sunday that he is confident the United States and the European Union would succeed in negotiating a new trans-Atlantic trade deal by the end of the year, saying the benefits of such an agreement were “indisputable.’’
Obama said images of plants moving overseas and jobs lost created a narrative about trade agreements that “drives, understandably, a lot of suspicion’’ in places like the United States and Germany. But, he added, well-designed trade deals can have greater benefits.
“It is indisputable that it has made our economy stronger,’’ he said. “It has made sure that our businesses are the most competitive in the world.’’
Obama’s comments came as he stood next to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany during a news conference in Hanover as they prepared to preside over the opening here of the world’s largest industrial trade fair.
The president’s visit to Germany was intended to bolster negotiators seeking to wrap up a trans-Atlantic trade agreement between the United States and the EU, an accord that Merkel supports but that is highly unpopular in her country.
Merkel is among Obama’s closest and most trusted counterparts, and the president is eager to support her during difficult political times. Merkel has struggled in recent months to confront a surge of migrants and a weakening economy.
The chancellor greeted the president at the Schloss Herrenhausen, the former summer residence of the Royal House of Hanover. They stood in front of a line of German troops in gray overcoats and green berets as the national anthems for the two nations played before returning inside for a private meeting.
Obama said he hoped the trade negotiations could be completed before he leaves office.
“I don’t anticipate that we will be able to complete ratification of a deal by the end of this year, but I do anticipate that we will have completed the agreement,’’ he said. Once negotiations are finished, he said, “people will be able to see exactly why this will be good for our two countries.’’
Earlier, his commerce secretary, Penny Pritzker, told an audience of 350 business leaders that “we have a rapidly closing window to make progress.’’
“We must ask ourselves: What is the cost of delay?’’ she said. “Now is the time for US-German leadership.’’
She also noted that Europe and the United States need to keep working hard to preserve digital freedom while also heeding privacy concerns. “If done wrong,’’ she warned, “we put at risk the thriving multibillion-dollar trans-Atlantic manufacturing economy.’’
Obama kindled goodwill with an unusually glowing appraisal of Merkel, telling Germany’s best-selling newspaper, Bild, that he was proud to call her a friend. In particular, he praised Merkel’s “real political and moral leadership’’ in welcoming more than a million migrants last year.
Merkel timed her invitation to the US president with the opening of the Hanover Messe, the world’s largest industrial technology trade fair. Obama led a delegation of business leaders to the trade show and later joined chief executives for a dinner.
None of his praise for Merkel impressed the tens of thousands of protesters who gathered in Hanover’s Opera Square on Saturday. Their goal, as proclaimed in hundreds of banners and chants, was to topple the trade deal, the Trans- Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.
Germany depends on exports for its wealth and on the United States for its security. Yet many Germans do not see the free trade agreement as a good thing.
Monica Orth, 54, a therapist for teenagers who lives in Bonn, is one of many here who see the trade pact as a plot by big businesses — often US ones — to lower consumer standards, bypass national justice systems and undermine Europe’s way of life.
“I don’t want Monsanto and Bayer to determine which seeds I eat,’’ Orth said. As two friends nodded in agreement, she added, “Democracy is a really valuable thing, and I don’t want big business to take that from me.’’
At least a dozen other protesters who were interviewed echoed her words. All accused corporations like Monsanto — the US biotechnology corporation reviled by some for using genetically modified seeds that it says help battle disease — or the German pharmaceutical company Bayer of trying to force on them products they do not want.
Although talks on the trans-Atlantic pact will resume Monday, the presidential election in the United States may make an agreement impossible in Washington this year. France and Germany will have elections in 2017 that are also likely to hurt the chances for a deal.
In a separate development Sunday, an aide said Obama has decided to send up to 250 military personnel to Syria to help local forces fighting the Islamic State. About 50 US special operations forces are already operating in Syria. The president plans to announce his decision in a speech Monday before leaving Germany.
Merkel said Sunday that Germany is prepared to increase its military commitments to its international partners. Merkel cited her country’s contribution to the international coalition in Afghanistan, and its arms supply and training for Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State in Iraq.
