On Thursday 25 May, after meeting with US President Donald Trump, European Council President Donald Tusk admitted that United States and the European Union held different views, mainly over the question of relations with Russia.
“I am not 100 per cent sure that we can say today – we meaning Mr President Trump and myself – that we have a common opinion about Russia, although when it comes to the conflict in Ukraine, it seems that we were on the same line”, Tusk explained to the press. One EU source explained that there was no common position between the EU and the United States on Russia but that they were “more or less along the same lines” concerning the conflict in Ukraine. Tusk also acknowledged that some issues remained open, such as climate (Trump being quite hostile to the Paris agreement) and trade. The European Commission announced that Europeans and Trump had agreed to work on a joint action plan on trade, but gave no further details. Addressing the media, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker explained that a Commission delegation and a delegation from the US administration would be meeting “in coming months and weeks” to “bring our opinions closer on trading matters, as we considered there were too many differences of analysis and actions between these two major economic blocs”, one European source said. Talks on TTIP are currently suspended and the US president is far from keen on trade agreements.
Both Europeans and Americans “have agreed it is in their common interest to work together with third countries on unfair trading practices”, a European source said, while the White House has spoken of the “need to protect American and European industries against unfair competition”. “The leaders agreed that the United States and the European Union should deepen their sound economic relations”, the White House added.
The president of the European Council nonetheless said that Europeans and Americans did agree “on many areas – first and foremost on counter-terrorism”. The White House said the leaders had agreed it was necessary to work together to deepen their security cooperation in the fight against Da’esh, or to combat radicalisation. The two parties also discussed North Korea, mainly on how to develop further the cooperation that is already good on this matter. According to the White House, cooperation should relate to isolating the North Korean regime at the political and economic levels.
A European source said discussions also covered Brexit, with the American side expressing concern about jobs that could be lost in the United States due to the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU. The White House later refuted this information. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant with Solenn Paulic)