Biden and Von der Leyen highlight the "alignment" of the EU and the US around Ukraine

The president of the United States, Joe Biden, at the beginning of the meeting with Ursula Von der Leyen, president of the European Commission. Andrew Harnik (AP)

The President of the United States, Joseph Biden, and the President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, highlighted this Friday the excellence of their relationship in a meeting at the White House from which an agreement is expected to come out to negotiate a favorable treatment of strategic European raw materials, and in which ample space will be devoted to the war in Ukraine.

"We are firmly aligned," said the European representative, who specified that both will address the main stumbling block in the transatlantic relationship, the US law to reduce inflation.

Europe complains about the subsidies that exclude it in that law, which it fears could reduce investments towards its block.

The two leaders had a lot to talk about in their business meeting in the Oval Office.

On the table, economic and commercial issues: reach an agreement that avoids a subsidy war between the two transatlantic partners for electric vehicles;

the war in Ukraine, and the possibility of sanctions on third countries that help Russia;

and the competition - for the United States, stark rivalry - with China.

"Transatlantic economic issues will be at the center" of the debate, said a senior White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

However, spectacular specific announcements cannot be expected, according to him he qualified.

Those issues are dominated by the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which allocates more than $300 billion to clean energy development and the fight against climate change.

Its approval last year angered European partners.

The EU criticizes, among other things, some provisions that offer subsidies of $7,500 per unit to electric cars manufactured in the United States and whose components come, at least half their value, from that country or from others with which Washington have signed free trade agreements.

That discomfort has given way to pragmatism: the law, like it or not, is in force, they remember from Brussels.

Europe has also proposed its own subsidies, and a series of legislation on critical raw materials or semiconductors to support the bloc's technological autonomy.

“Both the Biden Administration and Europe have worked to ensure that the IRA will not hinder the bilateral relationship, but this saga has left its mark.

Like the pandemic and the Russian invasion, the dispute has contributed to a rethinking of European attitudes on trade, strategic autonomy and the geopolitical position of the EU.

Historically an advocate of free trade philosophy at least within the single market, the EU embraces a more activist stance on trade and industrial policy.

The expectation of Europeans and Americans was to agree to negotiations on the critical raw materials used in the manufacture of electric vehicle batteries.

The United States could grant those European minerals a "quasi free trade agreement" status, which would allow European companies to benefit from US subsidies.

In addition, Washington spoke of a "dialogue" on the transparency of subsidies, in which each party communicates its intentions to avoid that these aids compete with each other,

"The idea is that we communicate with each other about our positions, in such a way that we get the most out of the deployment of clean energy and that our respective incentives do not compete with each other" and end up benefiting private interests, pointed out the senior official. US.

“The goals are to recognize the centrality of public investments to these common objectives, to take a series of steps on critical minerals, and a negotiation that we believe will improve the security and resilience of our battery supply chain over time for electric vehicles".

The two leaders planned to devote another large part of their conversation to the war in Ukraine and the increasing economic pressure on Russia.

"They will examine ways to deepen the collaboration of the United States and the European Union to apply our sanctions and our export control measures aggressively," the official said.

In particular, they wanted to focus on possible steps to punish third countries that may assist Russia in the war.

The United States has singled out Iran and North Korea, and warns that China has not ruled out providing military aid to Moscow, its great strategic partner.

That possibility, Washington has stressed, would have "serious consequences" for Beijing.

Including, for sure, sanctions.

The European Union is an important ally of Washington in the conflict.

Brussels has imposed ten rounds of sanctions against Russia, expelled that country's banks from the SWIFT international payments system, frozen Russian assets and reduced its dependence on gas exported by the former Soviet power.

And his support for Ukraine, only behind that of the United States and which already reaches 13,000 million euros, also includes military assistance and the training of soldiers from the invaded nation.

This Friday is Biden's most recent meeting with leaders of the European partners regarding the war, when the first anniversary of the Russian invasion has just passed and the conflict threatens to enter a new, bloodier phase: on the eve of the meeting, Russia launched a broad air strike on Ukrainian territory.

The US president met in kyiv at the end of February with the Ukrainian head of state, Volodimir Zelensky, to commemorate the start of the war.

In Warsaw, he spoke with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the leaders of the Alliance members in Eastern Europe.

Back in Washington, last week he also saw himself in the Oval Office with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

The next time he will do it in California with the British, Rishi Sunak, and Australian, Anthony Albanese, prime ministers.

At the end of this month he will travel to Ottawa to meet with the head of the Canadian government, Justin Trudeau.

And this Thursday, the White House Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, was talking with the Finnish president.

China was to constitute the third major block of the conversation between Biden and Von der Leyen.

Although Washington and Brussels are coordinated in their positions on the Asian giant, those positions are not identical.

The United States perceives Beijing as the rival to beat;

Europe has traditionally been softer.

Although that is changing.

"We are increasingly aligned in our positions with respect to China," said the senior US official.

In addition to Beijing's position on the war, the two leaders, he anticipated, planned to focus on "the need to strengthen our economic security, respond to specific threats to economic security that we have identified, including economic coercion, the use of biased economics as weapons and non-market policies and practices”.

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