Allies like France and Germany see the Inflation Reduction Act's investment in energy security as an assault on European industry aimed at coercing companies to shift investments toward North America. Manchin is determined to change their minds.
DAVOS, Switzerland — When French President Emmanuel Macron visited Washington late last year, he hunted down the key architect of the new American trade and energy policies he loathed., the West Virginia Democrat, with a blunt accusation.
Manchin is unabashedly proud of his role in shaping the IRA, handing out one-pagers and telling stories about the people — some of them at Davos — who are already benefiting from it.
Still, Manchin says his main message to Scholz — and Europe more broadly — is that “this piece of legislation was not intended to harm anybody. It was intended to keep America strong so we could help our friends. That’s it.”, the leader of the American congressional delegation in Davos, said the conversation with Scholz on the IRA was cordial and professional. But Coons, an experienced diplomat who sits on the Senate’s foreign relations committee, acknowledged there were clear differences.
By the winter, when Macron clashed with Manchin in Washington, European leaders grasped that the American energy law could have sweeping unintended consequences for their own countries. Manchin said that when Macron approached him, the French leader decried the investments that were leaving other parts of the world — including Europe — and flooding into the United States.
At a dinner Manchin and his congressional colleagues had with Xavier Bettel, Luxembourg’s prime minister, at Davos this week, the leader raised Europe’s concerns about the IRA, particularly in light of the spiking cost of energy due to Russia’s war in Ukraine, a person familiar with the conversation said. Manchin argued that Luxembourg would see those prices fall if the country entered into long-term contracts with U.S.-based producers.
“Over the last couple of decades our friends in Europe have encouraged the United States to address climate change, and now we’re doing it in a major way and some are criticizing the way we’re doing it,” said Rep.The Davos Congress Centre, center, is pictured. | AP Photo/Markus Schreiber
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