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Ambassador Jamison Greer
Indiana University strengthens tomorrow's workforce with practical real world experience.
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Interviewer 1
IU grads make a difference in your
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Ambassador Jamison Greer
community, serving as teachers, nurses and engineers who rise to tomorrow's challenges and meet them. Learn more at iu.edu impact
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Narrator/Announcer
Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News let's Talk about trade.
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Interviewer 1
The EU pushing Washington to finalize a tariff deal by July as President Donald Trump threatens a 2075% levy on European autos. The U.S. trade Representative Jameson Greer meeting with G7 officials this week in Paris. And I'm pleased to say that Ambassador Greer is making some time for us this morning. Ambassador Greer, welcome back to this program. Sir. Can we just start off by getting your assessment of the current characterization of talks between the EU and the US what is the current state of things?
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Ambassador Jamison Greer
So I've spent a lot of time over the weekend and here while I've been in Paris speaking to my counterparts at the European Commission and my counterparts in member states about this issue. Just to go back in time a little bit to last summer when we concluded the Turnberry Agreement, which was an initial framework the United States immediately set to work modifying its tariff rates to meet the agreement that we made. The EU has had a lot of time, many, many months to comply with their tariff commitments and their commitments on non tariff barriers and that hasn't materialized yet. I think that the minds are focused in the EU and in Europe I think is probably the best way to describe it right now. They're focused on what next steps are and how they might come into complian.
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Interviewer 2
Well, what are the next steps? Of course the Europeans have a process, it's guided by their parliament. What's the exact ask of the United States?
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Ambassador Jamison Greer
So the ask, if you go back to August, we have a written piece of paper, a joint statement with the Europeans and our ask is that Europe fulfill those obligations they committed to the United States complied with its tariff obligations for many, many months. The Europeans have agreed to remove their tariffs on industrial goods. They've agreed to give duty free quotas to key agricultural products coming from the United agreed to provide flexibilities for the United States on many of the regulatory matters that the European Union seems to specialize. Things related to methane content in lng, things about deforestation regulations, things about the carbon border adjustment mechanism. So we expect the European Union to keep its part of the deal which includes flexibilities on those types of things as well as the tariff things. And with the US Our part of the deal is to align our new tariff structure with what we committed to
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Interviewer 2
and if they don't come into an agreement by when is the question then would the President potentially escalate to the 25% auto level?
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Ambassador Jamison Greer
Right now the United States has a 10% tariff on the world. Generally speaking, it has 25% on autos from around the world. Europe has had it at only 15% this whole time. We have tariffs on steel and aluminum. We have other investigations ongoing which may or may not result in tariffs, depending on the outcome. The idea would be can, can Europe into compliance? I'm not setting a hard date on this. My view is it's already past due, frankly. This is part of the reason why the President has come out and said if the, if the Europeans aren't going to be complying with this deal right now, you know, why should we be complying with all of it? All that being said, the autos is just one element. There are other elements to the deal where the United States remains in full compliance in contrast to where the Europeans have been for many months.
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Interviewer 2
It's just that your colleague, the ambassador to Europe, told us earlier they would need to see movement relatively soon and basically said that July would be too late in May. So basically, do you need to see something between the next few weeks for the President not to act?
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Ambassador Jamison Greer
Well, what I would say is right now, this afternoon, I was meeting with my colleague, Commissioner Mauricevic, the trade Commissioner in the European Union, and he left the G7 at an appropriate time to go have the, what they call the trilog process between the European Parliament counseling Commission, where they go over the tariff bill that's being debated, that tariff bill in the European Parliament. It also has a lot of amendments attached to it that we didn't agree to with the European Union. Amendments that could limit the relief, limit the benefit of the agreement, place limits on U.S. exports to, to Europe under a preferential trade agreement. So some of those amendments need to be resolved as well. It's not just about passing the bill. It's about making sure the bill reflects what we agreed last summer with Europeans.
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Interviewer 2
Ambassador Guru, I know for you the focus is going to change what's going on in China because the President will be going there next week. Beijing is basically refusing to comply with U.S. sanctions. I'm sure you've seen the reporting that they're telling some firms, some refiners, that they don't need to comply when it comes to imports of Iranian crude. How big of an agenda item is this going to be when the President sits down with Xi Jinping?
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Ambassador Jamison Greer
Obviously, it's something we're going to have to discuss Iran is the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism and anyone who's buying oil from Iran is contributing to that. And so when the treasury takes a step similar to steps it's taken many times over decades with respect to oil refiners who are dealing with Iran, and you have a country that refuses to comply or directs non compliance, that's going to have to be a discussion item. We certainly have had it raised at the staff level between China and the United States. I would say we're looking for stability with China. We don't want this to be something that derails the broader, the broader relationship or any agreements that might come out of our meeting in Beijing. But it's certainly something that may come up.
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Interviewer 2
What more could be done besides secondary sanctions imposed potentially on Chinese banks? I mean, yesterday the president also said, even though China is doing this, the president said Xi Jinping has been very respectful of him. This doesn't seem respectful of the United States and our rules.
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Ambassador Jamison Greer
Remember, China and every country, you know, they, they're going to undertake domestically the laws and regulations they think they need to do. Sometimes they'll be in conflict with ours. And we're going to expect some kind of resolution. At the same time, we have the European Union. European Union for years has had a blocking statute against complying with our sanctions on Cuba. So what China is doing is serious. We take it very seriously. But again, for us, it's not something where we're going to let that become the only thing we talk about in the relationship. We have a lot of things we have to cover that will be addressed, but then we'll address other issues, issues related to trade and geopolitics and foreign policy and everything that comes with the relationship between two of the most important countries in the world.
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Interviewer 3
Ambassador Greer, there's a real question about alliances here and the way that the United States and Europe have been discussing and the tensions that have been emerging versus the rhetoric that's been surrounding the US and the China meeting that is planned for next week. Do you see the US alliances as shifting as some of these negotiations take place, or are these negotiations independent of any kind of traditional alliances that the United States has had?
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Ambassador Jamison Greer
I think that's a good question because it puts into context everything that we're doing. And I think you have to look a little bit at history. People think about our alliance system as something that is set in stone, never had issues have always been perfect and there have never been problems. That's just not true. I'm sitting here in Paris in a place where, you know, decades ago, Charles de Gaulle essentially pulled France out of the military structure of NATO and sought to have its own independent nuclear program, which in retrospect, you know, maybe de Gaulle was right. So, you know, we have a long history of having a back and forth between the US and its closest partners as we try to find the right balance between international cooperation and alliances and what we need for our sovereign right when it comes to trade, the United States, we have to re industrialize, we have to reduce our trade deficit. We have to get real wages up. We have to have manufacturing as a bigger portion of our economy. That necessarily means that we need to fix the terms of trade with other trading partners, friend or foe. And that means we have to have hard conversations with the Europeans, who, by the way, have the largest trade surplus in the world with the US Right now, it's no longer China as of last year, but with the United States. I don't think we're going to let that get in the way of whatever military cooperation we want to have with the Europeans. If other countries want trade to get in the way of that kind of cooperation, that's up to them. But there's a long history of having economic differences and challenges and resolutions and disputes, et cetera, and siloing that off from military and security questions. Sometimes they get mixed, sometimes they stay apart.
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Interviewer 3
Ambassador Greer, it seems like European representatives feel a little bit differently. The French trade minister said that it seems like there's a weaponization of mutual dependencies and that type of action is causing some real rethinking on their side. How do you address things like that commentary with some of your counterparts that we're seeing and hearing.
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Ambassador Jamison Greer
So, you know, I saw that language today, but it was with respect to. And maybe, maybe we have a different understanding. We put out a G7 statement that talks about that, but it's really about China weaponizing critical minerals and air where France, the rest of Europe and the United States are quite aligned on the way forward and how we shouldn't allow basic commodities to be weaponized. You know, the United States is not in the business of cutting off commodities. We've been exporting oil during this whole Iran operation. You know, China is the country that's been cutting off and limiting access to critical minerals. And that's why we're cooperating with Europe on projects for critical minerals, on downstream processing, on manufacturing. That's why we're talking about having a plurilateral trade agreement on trade and critical Minerals with Europe, with Japan and others. So there are areas of a lot of collaboration and cooperation as we enter into a period of geoeconomic uncertainty.
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Interviewer 1
Ambassador, that's an interesting point because for a long time the Europeans have just sat on the fence. They've wanted the security umbrella of the United States, but also wanted the economic benefits of having a close relationship with the Chinese. Do you think that's changed?
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Ambassador Jamison Greer
I think that every. I think that every country is going to pursue their trading relationships in the way they think is best. China is a great example. We're always going to trade with China. The Europeans are always going to trade with China. Europeans, Germany in particular. They've had very close economic relations. I do think that a lot of European countries and companies are rethinking that. I think they're being more clear eyed about the risks and the challenges of doing business in and with China at the same time. That's a big market. They do a lot of manufacturing there, they have a lot of consumers there. And so it's a place where people want to be able to do business, but they want to be able to do it in a reliable and predictable way. And that's not the case right now and hasn't been for some years. So while I think that the European view of China is changing and developing, it doesn't mean there's going to be some kind of massive decoupling in the same way that even in the United States, we haven't had a massive decoupling from China. China, we've reduced our reliance on them, we've diversified from their economy, but we still want to have a constructive trade relationship if we can.
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Interviewer 1
Ambassador, you've been generous with your time and we appreciate it. Thank you, sir. The United States Trade Representative, Jamison Greer, that Ambassador Greer, on the relationship with the EU and the relationship with the Chinese ahead of that meeting with the President in about a week.
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Narrator/Announcer
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