Habeck And Le Maire Arrive In Washington For Discussions On IRA

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck and French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire have arrived in Washington for a key meeting with Biden administration officials on the Inflation Reduction Act.

• Edited: Typo corrected in Le Maire quote
• The meeting, attended by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, comes ahead of a special EU summit on Thursday Feb 9 to discuss the European response.
• Habeck told reporters: "We still have a couple of months for a solution on critical raw material in IRA."
• Le Maire: "We need to ensure the maximum number of European companies are included in IRA framework."
• Habeck said yesterday that he believes a “de facto” free trade agreement could be reached between Europe and the United States to mitigate harms to European companies.
• Habeck: "I can imagine that there will be agreements in certain sectors that have the same effect as equal treatment. And then I would be satisfied. One should not be picky about it… if it is not a free trade agreement, but a regulatory framework where the same goods are valued equally in the same market, then what we actually need has been achieved."