TTC Outlines Joint Stance Amid Concerns Trump Could Downgrade Forum

(MNI) London - Senior EU and US officials have been speaking at a presser following the sixth ministerial meeting of the US-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC) in Leuven, Belgium. In the joint statementreleased earlier on 5 Apr, the focus was on cooperation in a number of economically and politicially sensitive areas including AI, semiconductors, critical minerals, transatlantic trade vis-a-vis the clean energy transition, and combating foreign manipulation and interference in the tech sphere.

• US Commerce Sec Gina Raimondo, asked what she wants from EU on chip export controls: "The Chinese wake up every day trying to figure out how to do an end run around our export controls so that they and potentially their military can access our most sophisticated technology, including chips...Every time we see any sort of diversion, we need our allies to work with us to crack down on the diversion to enforce to share information ..."
• Raimondo says that the watchword for chip export controls is "vigilence" as "semiconductors underpin the US economy [and] will be increasingly the case due to AI".
• Euractiv reportsthat Commission officials have sought to allay concerns that the forum could be scrapped or downgraded if Donald Trump wins the White House in November, "Amelie Coulet, senior manager at IBM’s government and regulatory affairs in Europe, agreed that there was “a sense the TTC has fallen short of its ambition, bogged down by trade irritants, an unwieldy number of working groups, and a lack of structured stakeholder engagement.”