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According to officials, the United States and the European Union plan to announce a joint effort on Monday aimed at identifying semiconductor supply shortages as well as countering Russian disinformation. Top US officials are in Saclay, France, for a meeting of the Trade and Technology Council, which was formed last year in response to China’s growing technological clout.
US officials accepted that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has widened the council’s mandate, but the Western bloc is still focused on China.
The two sides will announce a “early warning system” for semiconductor supply disruptions in the hopes of avoiding excessive competition among Western powers for the critical technology component.
The industry has been hit by a shortage of chipmaking components, which has been blamed on a surge in global demand for electronic products and pandemic-snarled supply chains.
“We hope to agree on high levels of subsidies — that they are not more than what is necessary, proportionate, and appropriate,” Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission’s Competition Commissioner, told reporters on Sunday.
The goal is that “as both United states and Brussels look to inspire semiconductor incentive to invest in our respective countries, we do so in a coordinated fashion and don’t actually encourage a subsidy race,” according to a US official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The US already had its own early warning system in place in 2021, which looked at distribution networks in Southeast Asia and “has been very helpful in helping us get ahead of a pair of potential shutdowns earlier this year,” according to a US official.
The official went on to say that the two sides are planning for supply disruptions caused by global epidemic lockdowns in China, the only major economy that still follows a zero-Covid strategy.
According to the official, the European Union and the United States will also announce joint measures to combat disinformation and hacking, particularly from Russia, including a guidance on cybersecurity best practises for small and medium-sized businesses and a task force on trusted technology suppliers.
“This is a global issue, not a European one,” she said.
The talks are being attended by US Treasury Secretary Gina Raimondo and US Trade Representative Katherine Tai.
On Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken started attending an opening dinner before departing for Abu Dhabi for the funeral of late leader Sheikh Khalifa.
