![]() ![]() The EU has long been in denial of this reality. Just like Trump, Biden has so far held up appointments to the World Trade Organization (WTO) body in charge of dispute settlement, keeping the trade court effectively paralyzed.īiden is temperamentally friendlier toward Europe than his predecessor, but “like with Trump, his instinct is protectionist,” said Uri Dadush, a U.S.-based fellow at the Bruegel think tank. The new administration has also been in no rush to revive multilateral conflict resolution. Last year, Biden agreed to remove Trump’s tariffs on EU steel and aluminum, but only to replace them with a system of quotas that hardly looks like free trade. In fact, the writing has been on the wall for some time. “For some Europeans, this is a real wake-up call, a real warning sign,” said Marie-Pierre Vedrenne, a French member of the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee who belongs to the centrist Renew Europe group. consumers will enjoy a tax break of up to $7,500 when buying an electric car, but only for vehicles assembled in North America. Inflation Reduction Act includes more than $400 billion in green subsidies from which EU companies will be excluded, unless they relocate across the pond. president is largely sticking to the same playbook as his predecessor. ![]() ![]() But while overall trans-Atlantic ties have significantly improved since he took office, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine further cementing the Western alliance, on trade and industrial policy the current U.S. government prepares to hand out hundreds of billions of dollars to American companies and consumers in a bid to speed up the transition to sustainable energies, Europe is realizing with dismay that its hopes of improved trade relations with the United States under President Joe Biden were a delusion, and it is preparing to respond in kind-potentially accelerating a general slide toward protectionism that risks undermining global trade.Īfter four rocky years of Donald Trump’s presidency, Biden’s election was welcomed in many European Union capitals with a huge sigh of relief.
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