About a year ago, on January 20, Joe Biden took office as US President. The improvement in the political atmosphere in the transatlantic relationship over the past year is noticeable. The tone and openness towards the European partners is a welcome change for many transatlanticists. Now is the time to use this momentum and open up the two markets further with new impulses, strengthen the economy and deepen American-German cooperation in response to global challenges. Beyond mutual expressions of sympathy, concrete, solution-oriented steps must follow to open up our markets more. Political will and action are required here - both from the US government and from the EU and in Berlin.The new federal government in Brussels and Washington should campaign for this.

Strengthening the transatlantic economic area is in the interest of both parties.

Finally, the EU exports 18.3 percent of its exports to the US (2020), and for US companies, Europe is still a significant investment destination.

In addition, we are united by a strong foundation of common values.

The time to act is pressing: the midterm elections are due in the USA as early as November, which could make government action even more complex for everyone involved.

On the other hand, the EU presented a new transatlantic agenda a year ago that needs to be filled with life.

The great potential of the partnership becomes clear again and again

Individual initiatives such as the cooperation of companies on both sides of the Atlantic in vaccine production and pandemic control show the great potential of the Atlantic partnership. And the encouraging steps taken in trade policy also show how helpful constructive cooperation can be. In the summer, the EU and the US agreed to mutually waive punitive tariffs for subsidies received from Airbus and Boeing for five years. At the end of October, an agreement was announced in the dispute over US tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from the EU. At the same time, both solutions are not perfect. A duty-free quota now applies to steel and aluminum imports, but this does not comply with the requirements of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This is too little,because multilateral and rule-compliant trade requires mutual equal treatment.

In addition, a basic transatlantic understanding is required on the direction of world trade. We are concerned about the increasing trend towards political control of trade flows. Sealed-off markets weaken competitiveness - and they contradict the win-win paradigm of international trade, which has been proven both in economic theory and in practice. A greater opening of the transatlantic market would now be the right signal in a world that – also due to the pandemic and increasing system rivalries – is now falling far too often into isolation reflexes.

It is positive that new discussion and negotiation formats were set up in the Biden administration's first year in office.

The EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC) is particularly important.

A total of ten working groups are to discuss all important future issues – such as how to deal with non-market economy systems or the ethical limits of artificial intelligence.

The success of the TCC can make a significant contribution to the future of transatlantic economic relations.

Need for clarification when transferring data

Our goal should be to promote common framework conditions for growth on both continents.

But that is not enough: we see with concern that negotiations on the dismantling of tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers are currently not an issue in the talks within the framework of the TTC.