The EU and the US call for a truce in the Trump-era trade war Business and Economic News

U.S. President Joe Biden ended a trade war front during Trump’s time when he met with European Union leaders on Tuesday to agree on a transatlantic dispute over airline subsidies that has lasted for 17 years.

Referring to the Irish poet WB Yeats at the start of the first EU-US summit, Biden also said that the world was changing and that Western democracies needed to unite.

“The world has changed, it has changed completely,” said the Irish-American Biden, referring to the poem at Easter 1916, in remarks on eight-day trips across Europe: the rise of China, the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change.

Sitting at an oval table at the EU headquarters with U.S. cabinet officials, he told EU institutions leaders that blockchain and the U.S. working together is “the best response to tackling these changes,” which he said has led to “great concern.”

Earlier he told reporters that he had very different opinions from the previous one. Former President Donald Trump also visited EU institutions in May 2017, but later imposed tariffs on the EU and pushed for Brexit – a move out of the UK bloc.

“I think we have great opportunities to work closely with the EU and NATO and we feel pretty good,” Biden said after moving inside the glass building of Europe (also known as Egg) to the European Union meeting room. heads of organizations.

“It is in the US’s best interest to have a strong relationship with NATO and the EU. I have very different perspectives than my predecessors, ”he said.

Both sides agreed to remove tariffs on $ 11.5 billion worth of U.S. tobacco and liquor for five years. Fares were set on a tit-for-tat basis due to frustration with state subsidies to U.S. planemakers and European Airbus rivals.

“This meeting has started with the progress made on aircraft,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “This really opens up a new chapter for us, as we move from litigation to aircraft cooperation – after 17 years of conflict … We delivered today.”

Biden’s summit is accompanied by von der Leyen and Council of Europe President Charles Michel, who represents the EU government.

Biden also repeated his mantra – “America is back” – and spoke of the need to provide good jobs for European and American workers, especially after the economic impact of COVID-19. He talked about his father because a job was “something more than a salary” that brought dignity.

It is seeking the help of Europe to defend Western liberal democracies in the face of a more assertive Russia and China’s military and economic rise.

“Once a century we are facing a global health crisis,” Biden told NATO on Monday evening, adding that “Russia and China are both looking for a wedge in transatlantic solidarity.”

According to an EU-US summit document seen by Reuters and still being negotiated until the end of the reunion, Washington and Brussels are committed to ending another dispute over steel-aluminum tariff sanctions.

A broader agenda

US Trade Representative Katherine Tai discussed the aircraft conflict with EU counterpart Valdis Dombrovskis in a first-ever meeting ahead of the US-EU summit. The couple will speak on Tuesday evening.

The freezing of trade disputes gives both sides more time to focus on broader agendas, such as concerns about the economic model driven by China’s states, diplomats said.

Biden and U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken had previously met King Philippe of Belgium, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo and Foreign Minister Sophie Wilmes at the Royal Palace in Brussels. On Wednesday, he will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva.

The draft summit, which will be released at the end of the meeting, said “they had the opportunity and responsibility to help people maintain their lives and security, fight climate change and stand up for democracy and human rights.”

There is no firm new transatlantic commitment to the climate in the summit statement, however, and both sides will make the decision to set a date to stop burning coal.

The EU and the US are the world’s major trading powers, along with China, but Trump wanted to sideline the EU.

After reviewing a free trade agreement with the EU, the Trump administration aimed to reduce the U.S.’s growing deficit in trade in goods. Biden, however, sees the EU as an ally in promoting free trade, as well as tackling climate change and ending the COVID-19 pandemic.