EC, US Trade Officials Say Economic Cooperation More Important Than Ever Since Ukraine Invasion

"It’s even more important we are not arguing about small things, small differences, but we are focusing on big things we need to address together," Dombrovskis said.

Dombrovskis, who is a politician from Latvia, a Baltic state that was part of the Soviet Union until 1991, the same year Ukraine became independent, said that the four sanctions packages of the EU and the EU's vote to stop the World Trade Organization accession process for Belarus are not the end of economic measures against Russia's aggression and Belarus's cooperation with it.

"If they do not stop this war, we will keep ramping up pressure," he said.

Dombrovskis said the U.S. and the EU would not have been able to align their export controls so fast if it had not been for the technical work of the TTC on export controls. He said that now the TTC will keep working on supply chain resilience, including assessing raw materials and critical inputs dependencies, and they will be doing so in the context of disruptions from both Ukraine and Russia because of the war, now a month old.

Tai said the EU and U.S. have to be "open and honest with each other, as well as with the Chinese" about the nature of the challenge China's economic model poses to the global economy. She called their system incompatible with free-market, fair-competition norms.

Peter Harrell, senior director of international economics and competitiveness at the National Security Council, who spoke on an earlier panel at the conference, made a more direct link between the TTC and EU/U.S. coordination on China. He said it needs to tackle the long-term economic challenge "we all are facing from China," and said that it should be exploring "how can we push back collectively against unfair Chinese business practices."

Harrell added, "There’s just a massive global rethink of supply chains going on both in the business community and the governmental community. We can’t be an autarkic country that is only dependent on ourselves," he said, and so the rethinking of the supply chain has to be done with allies, and European allies are central. " So I think that's another area where you're going to see quite a bit of near-term [TTC] action.”

Panelist Anna-Michelle Asimakopoulou, a member of the European Parliament, called China the elephant in the room. "When autocrats break the rules around the world, we have to have the strength to enforce them," she said.

Panelist Martin Jetter, chairman of IBM in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said that while business is a big fan of the TTC, he feels it may not be moving as fast as it needs to. He said he would like to see "much more business involvement" in TTC. Dombrovskis and Tai both said they are asking for stakeholder input.

Panelist Marjorie Chorlins, senior vice president of European affairs for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, spoke via video feed at the event, and praised the Biden administration's coordination with the business community on export controls, and its communication on sanctions. She said she hopes future supply chain initiatives reflect business realities.

"As a practical matter, it’s always challenging when measures are put in place that impede typical business operations but there are obviously circumstances that warrant [them]," she said.

The panel was asked about how quickly Europe can move away from Russian petroleum products. Chorlins responded, "I think it is important to keep in mind the discussion about energy is not only tied to the situation in Ukraine but the larger discussion about the green transition," and she said that what the EU does should achieve "more than just imposing pain on Russia."