<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><b class=""><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">POLITICO<o:p class=""></o:p></span></b></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">Schulz to Trump: Dropping Paris agreement means no trade talks<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">By Hans von der Burchard <o:p class=""></o:p></div><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">06/01/2017 08:13 AM EDT<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Germany's challenger for the chancellorship, Martin Schulz, vowed today to retaliate against President Donald Trump's potential withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement by refusing to engage in transatlantic trade talks.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Referring to trade negotiations with the U.S., which ran until the end of last year but are now on ice, Schulz said it would be impossible to grant better market access to the U.S. if it did not respect climate protection rules.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">"If the U.S. drops out of the climate agreement ... for European trade policy, this means that American production sites don't need to abide by the climate goals," said the Social Democratic candidate, who was speaking at the WDR Europa Forum in Berlin. "That is a competitive distortion against which we can only protect ourselves by saying: Whoever wants to have access to our market, and the European market is the biggest market in the world, needs to respect the European standards."<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Schulz, who hopes to beat Chancellor Angela Merkel in federal elections in September, said this logic of ensuring the enforcement of European standards was the reason why he supported free trade agreements in general.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Tuesday <a href="http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=f8de1a226a1cc66ffc953ec3b5df657021700e698ed354baf6bcaa2a1bd4926931d5a50c98a1b1eccbba5d5a8caff395" target="_blank" style="color: purple;" class="">indicated interest</a> in resuming talks on a transatlantic trade pact. Ross said it "makes sense ... to work towards a solution that increases overall trade while reducing our trade deficit."</p></body></html>