New US trade chief Robert Portman has played down tensions with the European Union over aircraft subsidies, saying trade relations between the two economic superpowers are healthy.

Writing in the International Herald Tribune yesterday, Mr Portman said Washington and Brussels had "much in common", and he believed he could work with EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson to "find that common ground".

"While disagreements such as the Airbus-Boeing dispute are significant and grab the headlines, our healthy $1.6 trillion transatlantic economic relationship testifies to the larger ties that bind us," he wrote. Relations between Mr Mandelson and Mr Portman's predecessor as US trade representative, Robert Zoellick, had grown increasingly heated because of the aircraft row, with both accusing the other of intransigence.

Nevertheless, both sides agreed to keep talking after an April 11 deadline for a deal on cutting state support for both Airbus and Boeing passed with no accord.

The failure to meet the deadline had raised the chances of the case returning to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), where both sides had already taken the first steps in what could be the largest commercial dispute ever.

Mr Portman, who was confirmed in his job by the US Senate last week, said that whatever the differences between the EU and the United States, they could not be allowed to detract from progress made in the WTO's Doha Round of free trade negotiations.

Mr Portman will be making his international debut as US trade chief at this week's meeting of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris.

It will be his first chance for face-to-face talks with Mr Mandelson, as well as with a host of other trade ministers.