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America and the EU are stronger together

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The relationship between the EU and America today reminds me of the confused celebrities on the red carpet. They smile at the camera, and act as if everything is fine, but in private, we all know, they’re just content.

At the last G7 summit, photo operations were welcomed and progress was also made on trade disputes, such as the Airbus-Boeing truce. But down below, Europeans remain very skeptical about whether the Biden administration is just a stop on the way to the other side of toxic populism. Meanwhile, Americans are frustrated by covering their bets on Europeans between a closer transatlantic alliance or closer relations with China.

It doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, it doesn’t have to be that way. If the EU wants to protect liberal values ​​in the age of capitalist surveillance, it needs America. And if the U.S. really wants to disengage economically from China in strategic areas, such as semiconductors, green batteries and electric vehicles, they need more than the internal market. There is little fruit hanging here to extract. But it requires real empathy and understanding on both sides.

First, Europeans should not make a mistake with America’s new industrial strategy, which President Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council, explained last week for protectionism. It is in line with what other developed countries in the U.S. and many developing countries are doing within normal economic planning by making strategic investments in high-growth technologies and strengthening the strength of government procurement for local workers and businesses.

Beyond that, the plan aims to create greater domestic and global economic resilience, partly creating greater geographical redundancy in areas such as semiconductors, where 75 percent of the content is concentrated in China and East Asia, according to the latest BCG report. Almost all of the world’s advanced semiconductor manufacturing capacity (about 92 percent) is in Taiwan.

Does anyone really think it’s a good idea considering the geopolitics of the region? Europeans have no doubt, therefore, that the EU “Digital compass“We plan to double the chip’s exit fee by 2030. The U.S. Senate’s $ 52 billion bill to boost domestic semiconductor production is a good complement to that. economies of scale for an industry in which semiconductors operate.

Allies like Japan and South Korea, but also countries like the Netherlands can play a crucial role in reconfiguring semiconductor supply chains. Creating less concentration – both regionally and within specific companies – would be a good thing for global markets. In an ideal world, the US, EU and Asian allies would work together to create common industry standards so that increases in innovation and demand could spread across regions with chips, green batteries, clean technologies and AI.

Another way for the EU and the US to reach a consensus right now would be to “focus on common responses to the challenges within their democracies” rather than in China, where Europeans do not want to choose a party, says Minister Renaud Lassus. The Revival of Democracy in America and the Better Angels Your Nature, A call for optimism about the future of the US in Tocqueville.

These challenges can range from Big Tech regulations to shared goals on climate change, something as ambitious as putting a price on carbon. Although some European countries, such as Poland, oppose it, the EU may submit a proposal for a carbon adjustment mechanism by July. The US has the opportunity to respond with a special proposal of its own.

That is a great weight for the administration; last week’s bipartisan infrastructure agreement included little to nothing about clean energy. But the climate would be in line with the goal of putting its industry at the center of its strategy. Through the delegation, it would also begin to address some of the concerns of shared trade about China. Throwing away Chinese steel, for example, would make it impossible if there was a real price for carbon.

The Biden administration can use any work called the “Summit for Democracy” called the White House as a place to start that work. Already, there is a virtuous circle of ideas shared between the US and the EU in areas like digital privacy, with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) pushing for even more aggressive California privacy laws that could one day be accepted nationally. Antitrust is another area like this, where both sides have reported efforts to reduce the monopoly power of each other’s platforms.

More collaboration could be imagined on issues such as freedom of the press, ways and means of creating a digital bill of rights, the principles governing artificial intelligence and genomic research.

All of this would somehow lead to the creation of a new base for transatlantic relations, the repair of domestic weaknesses and the strengthening of regional strengths rather than the frustration of China. Both sides have too much to lose by going it alone.

rana.foroohar@ft.com

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