UK, EU meet as gloom grows over post-Brexit trade feud

By JILL LAWLESS
Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — Top U.K. and European Union officials are meeting Friday to try to resolve their intractable Northern Ireland trade spat. David Frost for Britain and Maros Sefcovic for the EU are meeting in London after four weeks of negotiations failed to bridge gaps over Northern Ireland trade. Alarm is growing in Europe that Britain plans to suspend parts of the legally binding divorce agreement between the two sides. That would trigger EU retaliation and could spiral into a trade war between the 27-nation bloc and its increasingly estranged former member. Frost has warned that the emergency clause, Article 16, “will be our only option” if there is no breakthrough in the talks. But he said “we are certainly not there yet.”