The U.S. and the European Union are continuing to reinvigorate their collaboration on a wide range of trade issues but have yet to achieve many substantive outcomes.
The U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council was established in June 2021 with goals including (1) expanding bilateral trade and investment, (2) avoiding new unnecessary technical barriers to trade, (3) strengthening global cooperation on technology, digital issues, and supply chains, (4) cooperating on compatible and international standards development, and (5) facilitating regulatory policy and enforcement cooperation and, where possible, convergence.
During the fourth TTC ministerial meeting in Sweden May 31, the two sides said they “reviewed progress and announced key initiatives,” including the following.
- held the second session of the Trade and Labor Dialogue to discuss eradicating forced labor from global supply chains and received a new set of recommendations from labor unions and companies
- coordinating engagements with third countries to counter evasion of export restrictions on sensitive items and conducting coordinated capacity building actions to enable third countries’ authorities to tackle export control evasion and circumvention more effectively
- working toward the clarification and simplification of re-export procedures
- enhanced coordination to counter economic coercion and bolster transatlantic resilience
- placing decarbonization efforts “at the heart” of trade policy and endorsing a work program for the Transatlantic Initiative on Sustainable Trade
- commitment to continue to coordinate, share lessons, and seek to align approaches to address risks associated with outbound investment in sensitive technologies
- a new joint task force on quantum technologies that will discuss export control-related issues and other topics
- advancement of work on shared standards in critical and emerging technologies
- joint analyses of non-market policies and practices of third parties to better understand their impacts on U.S. and EU companies
- operationalization of a joint early warning mechanism for disruptions in semiconductor supply chains
- a new Clean Energy Incentives Dialogue that will help avoid disruptions in transatlantic trade and investment flows that could result from U.S. or EU incentives
- commitment to exchange information on non-market policies and practices affecting digital trade
- a shared vision on a standard for charging electric heavy-duty vehicles
- expanding the U.S.-EU Mutual Recognition Agreement on Pharmaceutical Good Manufacturing Practices to include veterinary medicines and updating an existing MRA on marine equipment
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