Welcoming the agreement reached between negotiators from the European Parliament and the EU Council on the ‘Turnberry’ joint statement, the United States Ambassador to the European Union, Andrew Puzder, reviewed the other areas of transatlantic cooperation with Agence Europe. (Interview by Camille-Cerise Gessant and Juliette Verdes)
Agence Europe – On Wednesday 20 May, negotiators from the European Parliament and the EU Council reached an agreement on the ‘Turnberry’ deal (see EUROPE 13871/1). The process took time. Are you satisfied?
Andrew Puzder – It is good news. It’s very encouraging that we got through this. It was a long process. And I wish we were done with it but apparently there’s yet another step [final approval by the EU institutions, editor’s note].
We’re anxious to see this get finalised, but I’m encouraged by the fact that the negotiators got through the process. Both the Council and Parliament worked very hard to see that this trade deal got through, and they just deserve a lot of credit for it.
As you said, the process took a long time, notably because of certain concerns on the European Parliament side regarding Greenland. Is this still a source of tension in transatlantic relations?
I hope not. I don’t think that the Greenland issue was a justification for delaying the trade deal. Certain European nations didn’t support us with respect to what’s going on with the war in Iran. But we didn’t say: “Hey, we’re not going to go forward with the trade deal”. These are unrelated events.
I believe the delays were the reason why President Trump said: “Look we’re going to take the auto tariffs back up. You’ve been enjoying the benefits for nine months and you haven’t lowered a single tariff. So it’s time to move this along”.
Then President von der Leyen called and requested an extension and President Trump gave the EU until July 4th. So it looks like we’re going to come in under the wire on that with a couple of weeks to spare, and that’s all very good news.
A Memorandum of Understanding was also signed last month on critical minerals (see EUROPE 13856/8). Where does cooperation on this issue stand? What are the United States’ objectives in the context of this partnership?
On both the US side and the EU side, there’s a very strong feeling that we now need to move forward with the critical minerals Memorandum of Understanding. We need a final agreement, which will deal with issues like price floors on critical minerals.
It’s very important that we move forward with projects. We don’t want this to be a strongly worded memo that nobody ever acts on. We want this agreement to produce results. When I say “we”, I mean the US and the EU. So I’m hopeful that we’re going to see some legitimate projects come out of this.
Still on cooperation, the EU still has to give the green light to the Pax Silica initiative. Some EU Member States have expressed reservations about it (see EUROPE 13851/8). How do you intend to reassure the European side about this agreement, and are you concerned by this delay?
I’m not sure what the concerns are with the agreement, but there was a paper that came out May 15th from Anthropic, who recently developed a program called Mythos (see EUROPE 13870/11). It could invade secure systems and find the vulnerabilities in those systems.
The United States is working with its partners to try and make sure that the potential threat from Mythos is not realised, that it’s not used as a weapon. So I think that you should trust the United States because we have and take responsibility for AI.
We want to partner with the EU, which is why we’re doing things such as trade agreements, critical minerals and Pax Silica. The United States is not only ahead of Europe with respect to AI technology, but is ahead of China. There’s no guarantee that we will remain ahead of China.
It would be easier to remain ahead of China if our European allies would partner with us and work to develop AI capabilities ahead of the Chinese. We’re hopeful that they will, which is why we have these agreements going forward. And we think there’s a good reason to do it.
That’s also why the European Union wants to develop its own AI sovereign capabilities. The European Commission will present, probably at the beginning of June, a package on tech sovereignty (see EUROPE 13870/9). It seems that the US administration has concerns about it.
The EU has every right to try and develop its own package. It is however years behind. According to the Anthropic report, there will be a transformative AI by 2028. So, that’s 18 months from now.
There’s no way Europe’s going to catch up in 18 months.
I think the United States will win this race whether Europe partners with us or not. It just would be easier if Europe partnered with us. I think there is absolutely no chance that Europe will win this race on its own. It’s just too far behind (...) to catch up within the required period of time.
We would love to partner with many of our allies, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, but also the European Union, which has countries like the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden that have made real advances in these areas and we’re anxious to partner. That’s why we’re hopeful that they’ll approve Pax Silica.
Do you know when that could be possible?
For us it’s possible now. There’s a document they just need to sign. And some of the European countries have already joined.
The new tech sovereignty package that the European Commission is going to propose could include certain European preferences. Are you concerned about that?
I’m not sure what the preferences are. I need to know specifically what we’re talking about. It’s always better when we partner for both economies. We’re stronger when we partner.
The preferences that most concern me would be on the defence side where we have this incredible transatlantic defence industrial base. If you look at the F-35. It’s an American aircraft. They make the tail section in the UK, the centrifuge in Germany, etc. (…) This is the extent to which our defence industrial base is intertwined. It is massive and has produced the most powerful weapons in the world and done so very effectively for a long period of time. Now to break that up to boost one or another country’s economies probably isn’t a great idea.
So, in your view, the fact that the European Union is giving some priority on developing its own defence industry is not a good thing?
If Europe wants to subsidise its defence industry and build it out, that actually helps both the United States and Europe.
But to exclude US companies from that process does damage to both the United States and Europe. In other words, you could have a US company that wants to expand production of arms in Germany that Berlin wants to buy. If the funding mechanisms excluded that US company from working with Germany, I think it would not be an effective use of funds. I think we’re much stronger when we do these things together than when we do them apart.
We have bilateral defence trade agreements – I think with 19 of 27 EU countries – where we treat basically a European country like it is the US. And then to exclude the US will probably actually violate those bilateral agreements. So I think it’s better when we do these things together and we’re more productive when we do that.
Do you think the Turnberry agreement is the beginning of a new relationship between the EU and the United States?
I think it’ll be a big improvement in our relationship. The fact that we’ve reached an agreement will bring stability not only for businesses but for our economic relationship. It’s disappointing it took so long to get it finalised but we’re just happy that we’re getting there.