President Joe Biden and top EU official Ursula von der Leyen met on Friday to defuse a transatlantic trade dispute over subsidies for the green economy and to discuss cooperation on confronting Russia. Over the past year, the European Union Commission president has worked closely with Biden to forge an unprecedented response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. European capitals joined Washington in a united front on sanctions against Moscow and in supplying weapons and aid to Ukraine. EU countries also surprised many by moving quickly to break the bloc’s dependency on Russian energy supplies.
However, tensions are swirling in Europe over the Biden administration’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act, a government‑spending spree championing U.S. manufacturing of climate‑friendly technologies. The EU fears the subsidies could shut out European manufacturers and hurt the energy and auto sectors. In response, the bloc is developing its own set of subsidies, such as the Green Deal Industrial Plan, to promote the emerging sector. A senior U.S. official told reporters that Biden and von der Leyen want to ensure the two programs complement each other. “We will articulate a shared approach and a shared set of goals,” the official said on condition of anonymity. “That won’t happen if our incentives and theirs are misaligned and compete in a zero‑sum way.”
Proof that Brussels and Washington can work together should come in the form of an announcement at Friday’s talks of negotiations on critical minerals used in electric‑vehicle batteries. “We hope to be able to launch negotiations on a critical minerals agreement,” the official added.
Another difficult area is how to respond to China’s increasingly muscular foreign and trade policies. The White House said that “challenges posed by the People’s Republic of China” will feature prominently in the Oval Office talks. Washington has been urging European capitals to take a firmer stand against Beijing—not just diplomatically, but also economically. The EU, however, is keen to avoid a rupture with China, leaving the transatlantic allies somewhat divided on how to move forward. Elvire Fabry, an analyst at the Institut Jacques Delors in Paris, told AFP that the White House session will give von der Leyen a chance to show the EU’s desire to work with Washington “but not in the position of follower, especially when it comes to China.” “The European position is based on wanting to maintain its own line concerning Beijing.”
The U.S. official stressed the cohesion between Brussels and Washington on the overall view of the China challenge. “There is unprecedented alignment between the U.S. and Europe,” he said, predicting the two leaders will express “a focus on the need to strengthen our economic security, to respond to concrete threats to economic security” from China.
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