In One Sentence

• The fifth U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC) meeting concluded on January 30 in Washington, DC.
• The two sides, for the first time, did not issue a joint statement following the TTC meeting but instead noted that “progress” was made towards delivering outcomes at the next TTC “capstone” meeting scheduled for “early April.”
• At the meeting, the U.S. and EU “showed a strong, shared desire to continue to increase bilateral trade and investment, co-operate on economic security and emerging technologies and to advance joint interests in the digital environment.”
• From January 31 to February 2 , right after the fifth U.S.- EU TTC meeting, the U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai traveled to Brussels to meet with her European Commission counterparts.

Mark the Essentials

• During events directly following the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC) meeting, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken emphasized the importance of the TTC in setting global standards for artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge and emerging technologies. Citing China’s role in international standards setting for telecom and digital infrastructure, Raimondo argued that U.S. and European absence in AI standards setting will allow China to continue to “eat our lunch.”
• Meanwhile, European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager said that U.S. and EU businesses would benefit from a “very much aligned approach” to AI standards, but also noted that security concerns over new technologies have impeded international cooperation on relevant research.
• EU officials told a U.S. audience that the TTC should prioritize, among others, the expansion of mutual recognition agreements to cover conformity assessment for machinery and electrical equipment. EU officials argued that such agreements would “affect positively more trade value than all the five or six [free trade agreements] we have been struggling to conclude.”
• Noting upcoming elections in both the U.S. and EU, Raimondo stressed that both sides must be “realistic” on what the TTC can achieve in the next few months, but argued that the “successful” and “robust” stakeholder engagement might help continue the momentum of the TTC’s work. Vestager agreed on the importance of stakeholders and that regardless of the TTC’s future, both the U.S. and EU will benefit from the experience gained from the framework. According to Vestager, the “ambition” from the European Union’s side is to try and maintain a positive trans-Atlantic relationship to facilitate alignment in economic security, supply chains, and technologies. 
• Before the TTC meeting, the European Commission introduced a series of initiatives to increase bloc-wide  and multilateral coordination on export controls, especially on emerging and advanced sensitive technologies, “against the backdrop of a geopolitical race for technology leadership.” They also launched a public consultation process on the potential establishment of an outbound investment monitoring and review mechanism.

Keeping an Eye On…

• From Bill Clinton’s New Transatlantic Agenda to George W. Bush’s Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC) to Barack Obama’s Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), U.S.-EU trade and investment frameworks have promised much and delivered little. The Biden administration’s Trade and Technology Council (TTC) appears to be following in a similar vein. Inaugurated with much fanfare and a 6,000-word joint statement, annexes included, in Pittsburgh in September 2021, the two sides could barely muster separate 600-word readouts following their fifth ministerial meeting in late January in Washington, D.C. There was no joint statement and no concrete outcomes. The notable highlight was two stakeholder events—on legacy semiconductors and on sustainable trade—which will quickly be forgotten. A sixth “capstone” TTC ministerial meeting is slated to be held later this spring, after which the TTC like much else will be drowned out by the Biden-Trump electoral pow-wow. The Spring ministerial provides a last opportunity for Washington and Brussels to produce something tangible, with a bilateral Critical Minerals Agreement (CMA) that would enable European companies to benefit from the sourcing requirements linked to the United States’ IRA-backed electric vehicle tax credits being the most likely candidate. Even this is not a given; the two sides have very different views on how the labor provisions in a CMA should be enforced. It is hard to exaggerate the extent to which the TTC has been a failure so far. On non-market economy practices, on trade and labor, on trade and environment, on state subsidies, the TTC has delivered nothing tangible. Indeed, the materially important deliverables that have been realized in U.S.-EU trade and investment ties during the past three years, such as the coordinated Russia sanctions, the Boeing-Airbus dispute settlement, and hitting the pause button on the Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs, have all occurred outside the framework of the TTC. And while the TTC has provided a forum to exchange notes on domestic laws and rulemaking on such matters (investment screening, transatlantic CHIPS Act subsidies, critical technologies lists, AI norms, etc.) it is not obvious that the creation of the TTC was essential for exchanging these notes. It would have happened in any case and did not require a dedicated forum as such. Little wonder then that Commerce Secretary Raimondo was left musing plaintively that industry and stakeholders should see value in protecting the TTC’s survival, post-2024. Truth be told, the TTC looks set to go the way of its TEC and TTIP predecessors.

Expanded Reading

• EU and US take stock of trade and technology cooperation, European Commission, January 30, 2024
• European Commission EVP Calls for Closer  Transatlantic Cooperation in 2024, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, January 30, 2024
• Secretary Antony J. Blinken And European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager At the Fifth U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council Ministerial Meeting, U.S. Department of State, January 30, 2024
• Joe Biden says he won’t lift tariffs on Chinese imports since Beijing hasn’t abided by phase one trade deal, South China Morning Post, January 20, 2022 [Paywall]
• Commission proposes new initiatives to strengthen economic security, European Commission, January 24, 2024
• EU AI Act: First Regulation on Artificial Intelligence, European Parliament, June 8, 2023