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Rhetoric on both sides of the Atlantic has turned against free trade and against international cooperation, according to Stavros Lambrinidis, ambassador from the European Union to the United States.

"In practice, on the ground? No way," said Lambrinidis, a Greek lawyer and politician who also served as his country's minister of foreign affairs for three months in 2011 during the worst of his country's fiscal crisis.

Lambrinidis met with editors and reporters at The Republican / MassLive Thursday afternoon following an event at American International College in Springfield with his host, U.S. Rep. Richard E, Neal, D-Springfield.

At The Republican he spoke for more than an hour covering world affairs, property, trade policy, human rights and the looming deadline for Brexit, or Great Britain's threatened exit from the European Union.

But at the center of it all for Lambrinidis is the crucial relationship between the United States and the European Union, two entities he called the world’s two largest democracies.

“We are each other’s biggest trade partner,” Lambrinidis said. “We are also each other’s biggest partner in terms of values. The two go hand in hand.”

That goes for environmental protections and the way workers are treated, he said.

The Unites States and the EU enjoy a balanced trading relationship, he said. The EU exports $629 billion in goods and services to the United States, and the United States exports $528 billion to the European Union.

Partnerships with the EU account for 300,000 jobs in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Of those, 172,673 are created by EU investment in Massachusetts. Another 95,997 jobs come from EU trade in Massachusetts.

The EU exports $17.04 billion to Massachusetts a year. Visitors form the 28 EU countries spend $828.33 million here each year.

Exports include $1.55 billion in pharmaceuticals and $3.37 million in fruits and tree nuts.

That’s not saying there aren’t issues; the EU retaliated in response to President Donald J. Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum. Lambrinidis said he’s working to avoid a U.S. tariff hike on automobiles form the EU.

And there is a Oct. 31 deadline for Great Britain to leave the European Union in accordance with the 2016 Brexit referendum.

"We hope they don't go," Lambrinidis said.

But at this point, the British haven’t accepted the EU’s terms for an agreement that preserves British citizens’ rights, paves the way for a trade agreement to replace the EU and prevents a “hard” land border with customs checks between Northern Ireland and EU member state the Republic of Ireland to the south.

Setting up a guarded border in Ireland would violate Good Friday Peace accords.