Vance: Buying More US Weaponry Could Help Resolve EU Talks
Vice President JD Vance, at a Q&A with Wolfgang Ischinger, a former German ambassador to the U.S., said it should be "very, very easy" to talk with officials at the EU about the bloc lowering its regulatory barriers to trade and its approach to U.S. tech giants.
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"We hope our European friends agree," Vance added.
Vance, who was speaking May 7 at the Munich Leaders Meeting, was asked by Ischinger what the U.S. would see as a successful negotiation with the EU. Ischinger said Germany sees the tariffs as "obviously a very urgent issue."
Vance said trade negotiators, he and the president already have had "great conversations," and the U.S. wants more agricultural export access in Europe and more military hardware and software sales.
"It seems like some of our European friends are less open for business if the people selling software and hardware are American firms," Vance said. He said in some countries, defense ministry officials "will just say we're not buying American products," even though there is no law or regulation that prohibits those purchases.
Vance also complained that European officials "penalize American technology firms in a way that [they] would never penalize European technology firms. We just want a little bit more fairness, or to use the president's favorite word, reciprocity." It wasn't clear if he was talking about fines imposed by the judiciary, or digital services taxes, or both.
Vance reminded the audience that Liberation Day was barely more than a month ago, and that conversations are happening about how to rebalance global trade. "So, we are in the early innings of a very significant shift. I think that shift is going to really inure to the benefit of both the United States, but also of Europe, but fundamentally it has to happen, and it's going to happen under President [Donald] Trump's leadership."