China In Focus At US-EU Trade And Technology Council

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, and United States Trade Rep Katherine Tai will kick off the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council this evening at “welcome dinner” in Lulea, Sweden, at 14:00 ET 19:00 BST 20:00 CET.

• Politico reports that the meeting is the “next round of the long-running transatlantic tussle over how far to go on confronting China...”
• Politico: “Even though G7 leaders agreed on a broad game plan to tackle China less than two weeks ago, the EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, is still unable to sign up to the tough language the U.S. is proposing on China.”
• Reuters: "China will be a major focus of the meeting, even if the word "China" only features twice in the draft joint statement... Diplomats say Washington has pushed for language echoing some of the concerns expressed at the G7 leaders meeting a week ago, which China's Global Times dubbed an "anti-China workshop".
• Raimondo said on the Saturday that the Biden administration “won’t tolerate” China’s ban on US firm Micron Technology from supplying semiconductors for key Chinese infrastructure projects, saying: “We see it as, plain and simple, economic coercion.”