It's no secret that I've been in a sour mood as of late on the future of U.S. trade policy. Today's New York Times story on the House's passage of the Peru FTA didn't cheer me up either, because the takeaway point is that its passage was the exception and not the rule.

Eoin Callan, however, lifts me from complete and total despair with this Financial Times story:

Diplomats from the US and European Union are laying the groundwork for an unprecedented round of bilateral bargaining in which all of the main transatlantic trade disputes would be put on the table and negotiated in one go.

The talks between the world’s two largest trading blocs would link the resolution of billions of dollars-worth of simmering trade disputes and aim to “clear the decks” with one all-encompassing deal, officials said.

The negotiations would tie the fate of a range of US and European industries, including computer manufacturers and producers of genetically modified foods, to a back-and-forth round of bartering that would produce “winners and losers on both sides”, a senior European official said.

The plans appear to have originated in Brussels and coalesced around the Transatlantic Economic Council, which met for the first time on Friday in Washington and brought together senior policymakers from the Bush administration and European Commission....

The chief EU trade negotiator said there was merit in an approach that linked separate trade disputes and “put them on a ledger, marking down each one, three wins for you, three wins for us”.

He said it was easier to achieve a negotiated solution when “you can get a win on both sides” rather than trying to broker a compromise when trade law clearly favoured one side.

A US trade official said: “We’re up to sitting down at the table to talk about these things and trying to negotiate rather than litigate.”

Both the United States and European Union would score some policy victories, and remove some major irritants to the transatlatic relationship.

The business community on both sides of the Atlantic would benefit from greater policy certainty.

Consumers would gain from increased levels of exchange

The biggest winner, however, would likely be the WTO -- because it would save the dispute settlement body from having to decide cases that are way beyond its pay grade.