U.S. President Barack Obama said on Sunday, April 24 he would do whatever he could to advance a controversial trade deal with the European Union in his last eight months in office, but warned that time was running short, according to Reuters.

Obama has pushed to complete two trade agreements before his term ends on January 20 - with Pacific nations and with the EU - but has run into a growing swell of populist concerns about the impact on jobs, consumer protections and the environment.

"Time is not on our side," he conceded to business leaders at the Hanover Messe, a massive industrial trade fair.

"If we don't complete negotiations this year, then upcoming political transitions in the United States and Europe would mean this agreement won't be finished for quite some time."

Obama is in Germany to promote the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, but the issue was overshadowed by discussions on the crises in Syria, Ukraine and Libya when the two leaders met.

On Monday, they are set to hold talks with British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Francois Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on some of the same issues.

But first, they had dinner in a 17th century palace with chief executives of some of the largest U.S. and German companies such as Microsoft, Dow, Lockheed Martin, Honeywell, BASF, Bayer and Siemens.

Also at the dinner was Matthias Müller, CEO of Volkswagen, whose company has admitted to cheating diesel emissions tests in the United States, a scandal that involves 11 million vehicles worldwide.