President Joe Biden is seeking to tamp down trade tensions with European allies as he spends one last day consulting with western democracies ahead of his highly anticipated meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
After a pair of summits with Group of Seven world leaders in the U.K. and then NATO allies in Brussels, Biden meets Tuesday with European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
The president has sought to marshal widespread European support for his efforts to counter Russia prior to his Wednesday meeting in Geneva with Putin. But the U.S.-EU relationship is not without some tensions.
Biden will meet with the top EU officials at a moment when the continent’s leaders are becoming impatient that the American president has not yet addressed his predecessor Donald Trump’s 2018 decision to impose import taxes on foreign steel and aluminum. There’s also a longstanding dispute over how much of a government subsidy each side unfairly provides for its aircraft manufacturing giant — Boeing in the United States and Airbus in the EU.
Biden isn’t expected to take action on the tariffs before heading to Geneva later Tuesday. He bristled that he needed more time to address the matter when asked by a reporter about the tariffs at his news conference at the end of the G-7 on Sunday. “A hundred and twenty days,” Biden said, underestimating his time in office by weeks. “Give me a break. Need time.”
Still, White House officials think they can build more good will with Europe ahead of the Putin face-to-face meeting.
To that end, Biden, Michel and von der Leyen awee expected to announce the creation of a joint trade and technology council, according to a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the announcement.
