But Mr. Bush brushed past the trans-Atlantic dispute.

The World Trade Organization has agreed to the European Union's request to set up a panel of experts in the trans-Atlantic dispute over United States steel tariffs.

With France and Germany at diplomatic loggerheads with the United States over Iraq, businesspeople here are watching nervously for signs that the trans-Atlantic dispute will spill over into commerce.

But he also urged European leaders not to exclude American exports and alluded to the trans-Atlantic disputes preventing the so-called Uruguay Round of talks from producing an agreement to reduce trade barriers.

There is no doubt the trans-Atlantic dispute over Iraq has made things worse in a variety of industries.

In declaring that the United Nations would have a secondary role in reconstructing Iraq and leading the country toward eventual elections, the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, seemed certain to fuel the latest trans-Atlantic dispute between the Bush administration and its traditional allies.

The decision was politically charged because of the trans-Atlantic dispute over whether Airbus, which is taking on Boeing and the McDonnell Douglas Corporation, is unfairly subsidized by its member governments: France, West Germany, Britain and Spain.

But the French Transport Minister, Bernard Pons, sought to play down the trans-Atlantic dispute.

First, the extent of the disunity and the vehemence of the criticism were unmatched in even the worst trans-Atlantic disputes of the cold war.

Yet the trans-Atlantic dispute over steel tariffs has turned these old friends into public adversaries who have traded barbs in advance of their one-on-one meetings this week in Washington.