A Recap of the US-EU Trade and Technology Council Meeting with Mark Scott

Audio of this conversation is available via your favorite podcast service. Last week, the U.S Secretaries of State and Commerce and trade representatives from President Joe Biden’s administration met with top European Union officials in the heart of the Swedish Lapland for the fourth Ministerial meeting of the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council, or “TTC”. Pressing needs were tackled, new initiatives were launched, commitments were made, and cooperation was deepened on a range of tech policy issues, at least according to the press releases. To hear an unvarnished view from someone who was at the meeting about what might actually come of it all, I invited on a journalist who is, in my opinion, one the best tech policy reporters in the world: Mark Scott, Chief Technology Correspondent for Politico. With his colleagues, Mark filed multiple pieces from Luleå, Sweden, where the event was held, including on the degree to which the specter of China loomed over the meeting; on tough talk from European Union internal market commissioner Thierry Breton; and on the dialogue around artificial intelligence. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of the discussion. Justin Hendrix: Mark, you have just returned from a very interesting meeting that I feel like is sort of less well covered, a little bit off the beaten path. Can you tell folks just what went on in Sweden and what you observed there? Mark Scott: Sure. I mean it wasn’t just Sweden, it was northern Sweden. We were just in the south…A Recap of the US-EU Trade and Technology Council Meeting with Mark Scott