San Francisco Frontiers - Biden, EU chief meet on trade tensions, Ukraine

The European Union Commission president has worked closely with Biden in forging an unprecedented response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine over the last year.

Biden, hosting von der Leyen in the Oval Office, said the alliance to support Ukraine marked "a new era."

However, tensions are swirling in Europe over the Biden administration's landmark Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a government spending spree championing US manufacturing in climate-friendly technologies.

Amid EU alarm that the subsidies' "made in America" requirement will hurt European-based energy and auto sectors, the EU is working on its own sets of incentives, such as the Green Deal Industrial Plan, to promote the emerging sector.

"It's great that there is such massive investment in green technologies now," von der Leyen told Biden in the Oval Office. "We want to match it."

A senior US official told reporters that Biden and von der Leyen were discussing how to ensure the two programs complement each other.

The leaders will express "an articulation of a shared approach and a shared set of goals," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"That isn't going to happen if our incentives and their incentives are misaligned and compete with one another in a zero sum way."

Proof that Brussels and Washington can work together should come in the form of an announcement at the talks Friday of negotiations on the specific area of critical minerals used in electric vehicle batteries.

"Coming out of the meeting, we hope to be able to launch negotiations on a trade agreement on critical minerals and a dialogue on subsequent transparency," White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

- China differences -

Another difficult area is how to respond to China's increasingly muscular foreign and trade policies.

The White House said that "challenges posed by the People's Republic of China" were to feature prominently in the talks.

Washington has been urging European capitals to take a firmer stand against Beijing -- not just diplomatically, but also economically. However, the EU is keen to avoid rupture with China, leaving the transatlantic allies somewhat divided on how to move forward.

Elvire Fabry, an analyst at the Institut Jacques Delors, a Paris-based think tank, told AFP that the White House session was a chance for von der Leyen to show EU desire to work with Washington, "but not in the position of follower, especially when it comes to China."

"The European position is based on wanting to maintain its own line concerning Beijing."

However, the US official stressed the cohesion between Brussels and Washington on the overall view of the China challenge.

"There is unprecedented alignment between the US and Europe," he said, predicting the two leaders will express "a focus on the need to strengthen our economic security, to respond to concrete threats to economic security" from China.

C.Lewis--SFF