(Reuters) – The European Union is seeking to forge a new alliance with the United States to bury the tensions of the Trump era and meet the challenges posed by China, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, citing a draft plan.
The plan proposes rebuilding ties with common fronts on issues from digital regulation to tackling the COVID-19 pandemic, the FT said.
Relations between the United States and Europe have been strained under President Donald Trump. The EU and most of the bloc’s states have congratulated President-elect Joe Biden.
“As open democratic societies and market economies, the EU and the US agree on the strategic challenge presented by China’s growing international assertiveness, even if we do not always agree on the best way to address this,” the FT cited the draft plan as saying.
The plan, which will be submitted for endorsement by national leaders at a meeting on Dec. 10-11, proposed the launch of a new transatlantic agenda in an EU-U.S. summit in the first half of 2021, the newspaper added.
Earlier in November, the EU imposed tariffs on up to $4 billion U.S. imports in retaliation for U.S. subsidies for Boeing but said it was hopeful of an improvement in trade ties under Biden. https://reut.rs/3fUT8Re
EU trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis earlier said the European Commission, which coordinates trade policy for the 27 EU member states, had made some informal contacts with the Biden team.
(Reporting by Anirudh Saligrama in Bengaluru; editing by Alex Richardson and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
