Barack Obama makes a valedictory visit to Germany Sunday to see his “friend” Angela Merkel, but their show of unity looked unlikely to curb opposition to their plans for a transatlantic trade pact. Obama will jet into the northern city of Hanover for a final bilateral visit to Europe’s biggest economy. One of the headline goals of the trip is to advance negotiations on what could become the world’s biggest free trade agreement, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Both sides say they aim to see it finalised, at least in its broad outline, before Obama leaves office in January. However Merkel’s economy minister Sigmar Gabriel cast doubt on those ambitions Sunday, warning the deal “will fail” if the US refuses to make concessions in the protracted talks. US President Barack Obama left London on April 24, 2016 to head for Germany “The Americans want to hold fast to their ‘Buy American’ idea. We can’t accept that. They don’t want to open their public tenders to European companies. For me, that goes against free trade,” Gabriel, a Social Democrat who is also Germany’s deputy chancellor, told business newspaper Handelsblatt. His comments came a day after tens of thousands of