Secretary of State Antony Blinken walked away from the latest rounds of talks between the U.S, and Europe on the subject of how the two powers can create good jobs and tackle the climate crisis at the same time seemingly intrigued by much of what he heard.
"At the TTC (Trade and Technology Council) working lunch, we discussed the Inflation Reduction Act. The United States and Europe can create good paying jobs and tackle the climate crisis — and not at each other's expense," Blinken posted to Twitter. His comments came after the U.S. hosted meetings earlier this month that opened the door to progress and solidified "international rules-based approaches to trade, technology built on shared democratic principles and values.”
Blinken isn’t alone in hinting that they feel the confabs may have put the two sides closest to speaking the same language.
"For friends like U.S.-EU, competition & cooperation can be two faces of the same coin. We're working together on strengthening our clean energy industrial bases, from standards to raw materials. In the global context we have a common interest in preserving our industrial leadership," Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, tweeted.
That’s not to say EU policymakers haven’t expressed concerns about the impact the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act could prove to have on their economy. The two sides recently convened a joint task force to discuss European problems and consider possible solutions, with one of the biggest areas of concern being the tax credit on electric vehicles (EVs). With those credits only applying to those finally assembled in North America, EU imports do not qualify, effectively giving U.S. producers an advantage.
As it is, the U.S. remains the EU's top trading partner, with somewhere in the neighborhood of 9.4 million people and 16 million jobs across the globe being either directly or indirectly linked to the trade agreement between the two sides.
With regulations still constantly changing and countries adopting strict standards on emissions and for EVs, TTC officials insist they plan to spend even more time focusing on developing standards for charging systems for heavy-duty vehicles (to be adopted by 2024) with the EU and the U.S. also interested in developing recommendations for public charging infrastructures by 2023.