European and American officials are scrambling to avoid a return to their transatlantic trade war, amid increasing frustration in Washington over the EU’s failure to implement the transatlantic trade deal they agreed last summer.
*Brussels, despite working on the issue for over a decade, has produced a series of targets, roadmaps and handshake alliances that have delivered few results when it comes to securing the critical materials used in everything from radar installations to electric vehicle batteries. *
*The Trump administration, by contrast, has been on a dealmaking spree, using cold cash to take stakes in projects worldwide. *
With Brussels trailing in Washington’s wake, the risk is that a proposed buyers’ club — which would envisage a price floor to underwrite alternative sources of supply — could turn into a mechanism whereby the Europeans end up sponsoring the U.S.'s priority access to the critical minerals.
“It’s America First, also in minerals,” Gehrke said. “America is going to buy up all the assets — Europe doesn’t have enough money to compete.”
Europe’s most powerful leader went out on a limb to stick close to Washington in the early days of the conflict, while his peers such as Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the U.S.-Israeli strikes as illegal.
But Merz is now having to perform an abrupt U-turn as the economic and security impacts of the war on the EU’s biggest economy become clearer, and is publicly airing his fears that Trump has no exit strategy to end the fighting in the Persian Gulf.
“We think that’s wrong,” Merz said, speaking alongside Norwegian Prime Minster Jonas Gahr Støre. “There is currently a price problem, but not a supply problem. And in that regard, I would like to know what other factors led the U.S. government to make this decision."
Is the EU tired of being treated like vassels?