Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo called on European governments to work with the US to fight climate change and counter Chinese clout, the latest sign that Washington hopes allies follow its lead in passing a landmark climate bill.
(Bloomberg) — Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo called on European governments to work with the US to fight climate change and counter Chinese clout, the latest sign that Washington hopes allies follow its lead in passing a landmark climate bill.
The US passage of the Inflation Reduction Act rankled European leaders, who complained that it was an unfair subsidy. The Biden administration has sought to soothe that angst while signaling that Europe should match them rather than start a trade fight.
“We need to work together, and I think whether it’s the IRA or the chips initiative, there’s opportunities for European companies and opportunities for us to work together to meet the moment with climate change and our global competition with China,” Raimondo told Bloomberg Television on Friday. “So, initial hurt feelings, maybe. But there’s a lot of good work to do together.”
Raimondo spoke after the release of the latest US jobs data, which was in line with estimates and a mixed result as the Federal Reserve weighs how high to push rates. She said the US approach to China is to protect American technology and national security while promoting exports of certain goods.
She said the US isn’t looking to make all semiconductor chips on its own soil but must rely less on Asia.
“Nobody thinks that we should be making everything that we need in America,” she said. “The fact that we buy 90-plus percent of our leading-edge chips from Taiwan is also unsustainable and, quite frankly, almost dangerous.”
“Bo one would say we need to make enough chips in America for all that we consume — that would be silly — but we do need to have more resiliency,” she said.
Raimondo praised one bipartisan effort, the RESTRICT Act, as “excellent and very sensible.” The bill aims to strengthen powers to address threats from foreign technology, which Raimondo said is a better approach than focusing on any one entity, such as the Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok.
“I do not think we should get into a witch hunt sort of environment where we go after individual companies by name one at a time,” she said.
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