European Parliament 2019-2024 Committee on International Trade 24.11.2021 MISSION REPORT following the INTA mission to Washington D.C., United States, from 01 to 05 November 2021 Committee on International Trade Members of the mission: Bernd Lange Danuta Maria Hübner Liesje Schreinemacher Herve Juvin Dominik Tarczyński Helmut Scholz (S&D) (Leader of the mission) (PPE) (Renew) (ID) (ECR) (The Left) CR\1242621EN.docx EN PE699.283v01-00 United in diversity EN Introduction This was the second ad hoc delegation of the INTA Committee during this 9th legislative term to Washington D.C., United States of America (US). In terms of the overall political and economic setting, this visit was very different from the previous one that had taken place in February 2020 (just before the COVID-19 outbreak): the pandemic has disrupted our lives as well as global trade and investments and Joe Biden has replaced Donald Trump as the US President. There is a renewed sense of transatlantic engagement, which was very evident not only from the high level of interlocutors that the delegation met, but also - and more importantly - from the concrete discussions. In addition, the visit took place at a key moment in terms both of the EU-US trade relations (de-escalation of tariffs in the Airbus/Boeing dispute and on steel and aluminium and after the inauguration of a new EU-US forum on trade and technology) and US national politics. During three working days, the INTA delegation had 19 meetings and met (mainly in person and some virtually) with over 100 people, ranging from the US Congress, Executive, EU and US businesses, trade unions and think tank. This delegation thus further developed a network both at political and technical level to build a stronger positive EU-US dialogue on trade issues, in particular to facilitate INTA’s democratic scrutiny of the TTC and its working groups. Scene setting There is a renewed sense of transatlantic engagement in trade matters following the inauguration of President Biden in January 2021. On his first day of office, the US re-joined the Paris Agreement. In February, the historical nomination of Dr Okonjo-Iweala as WTO Director-General was deblocked. In May, some of the sanctions against Nord Stream 2 pipeline were lifted. In June, at the first EU-US Summit in Brussels, EU and US reached a five-years agreement on the long lasting dispute Airbus/Boeing and created the Trade and Technology Council (TTC), a new forum to coordinate approaches to key global trade, economic, and technology issues. In October, following a landmark deal on a minimum tax rate for multinational enterprises at the OECD, EU digital taxes and US relative retaliatory tariffs were withdrawn. Just before the INTA visit, the EU and US announced their decision to start discussions on a Global Arrangement on Sustainable Steel and Aluminium and suspend steel and aluminium trade disputes and tariffs. However, to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, President Biden issued an executive order to bolster domestic manufacturing thereby tightening “Buy American” rules. In addition, during the week of the INTA visit, an historic bipartisan infrastructure bill (USD 1.2 trillion) passed in Congress, opening the way to a social infrastructure package to build back better after the pandemic, both of which are likely to bear important consequences for both US and European trade, businesses, and workers. In particular, tax incentives are foreseen for ordinary citizens to purchase American-made electric cars which unfairly hinders foreign-owned automakers that employ millions of US workers. Finally, the impact for the EU of Biden’s “worker centric trade policy”, that will ensure trade more equitably distributes benefits to and among PE699.283v01-00 EN 2/15 CR\1242621EN.docx US workers, it is yet unclear. The fact that the nomination of key US Ambassadors, among others to the EU and the WTO, is still pending (blocked by the Republicans in the Senate) is not reassuring. At issue is whether President Biden's administration can sign on to a positive EU-US agenda with Democrats controlling only a razor-thin majority in Congress. Summary account of meetings High-level meetings were secured, in particular, with Katherine Tai, US Trade Representative and her Office (Jayme White, Deputy US Trade Representative, and among others the Assistant USTRs for Europe and for Monitoring and Enforcement), in the Congress (especially with INTA’s powerful US counterpart