European Union hopes for a new era in relations with the US were thrown into chaos on Wednesday when the holder of the EU presidency condemned American remedies for the global recession as "the road to hell".
Barely a week before Barack Obama is due to arrive in Europe on his first official visit as US president, Mirek Topolanek, the Czech Republic's prime minister, put the 27-nation EU on a collision course with Washington.
His attack compounded the confusion that has engulfed EU policy after the Czech leader lost a no-confidence vote in the country's parliament on Tuesday, forcing him to offer his government's resignation midway through its six-month EU presidency.
Mr Topolanek said EU leaders had been disturbed at a summit in Brussels last week to hear calls from Tim Geithner, the US Treasury secretary, for more aggressive policies to fight the global downturn.
"The US Treasury secretary talks about permanent action and we, at our spring council, were quite alarmed at that ... The US is repeating mistakes from the 1930s, such as wide-ranging stimuluses, protectionist tendencies and appeals, the 'Buy American' campaign, and so on," he told a European parliament session in Strasbourg. "All these steps, their combination and their permanency are the road to hell."
US officials made no comment on the remarks. But the Obama administration says it took great pains to ensure that the Buy American provisions in the $787bn stimulus that the president signed into law last month were consistent with World Trade Organisation rules. It followed, therefore, that any attempt to make them permanent would continue to be consistent with WTO rules.