It looked like the start of a transatlantic trade war over climate policy.
As U.S. President Joe Biden hosted his French counterpart in Washington on Dec. 1, not long after finalizing a $369 billion green tax-break bonanza, there was a rupture in the usual diplomatic cooperation on global warming. Just a day earlier, and in front of U.S. lawmakers, French President Emmanuel Macron criticized protectionist features of the Inflation Reduction Act that would be "super aggressive" toward European businesses.