Outside Trade and Technology Council Meeting, Activists Call on EU to Stop Threatening the IRA
COLLEGE PARK, MD – U.S. and EU officials at today’s Trade and Technology Council (TTC) meeting were greeted by activists calling for an end to the threats of trade challenges to the North American content incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Photos are available here.
Outside the meeting on the University of Maryland campus, protestors voiced their support for the IRA and its hundreds of millions of dollars in tax credits that will support clean energy jobs and the green economic transition needed to fight climate change.
One of the key stated objectives for this week’s TTC meeting is to launch initiatives to achieve transatlantic sustainable trade, but the EU has repeatedly returned its focus to its displeasure at the IRA, overshadowing the rest of the TTC agenda.
“Through the Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S. has finally taken a big step towards the renewable energy transition the world needs us to make – and it wasn’t an easy piece of legislation to pass,” said Ryan Harvey, Global Trade Watch National Field Director. “The European Union should stand down in its threats against this hard-won climate policy.”
This action follows last week’s World Cup-themed protest outside the White House. During a state dinner, activists projected messages calling on President Emmanuel Macron to stop threatening to launch trade challenges against the IRA. Protestors in referee outfits blew the whistle at Macron, urging him to stop giving clean energy jobs the “red card.”