The W and Tony Show.(George W. Bush and Tony Blair)(Brief Article)

Last November, as the U.S. presidential election dragged on in Florida, Tony Blair ran into some visiting Americans in the corridors of 10 Downing Street. Who's going to win? the PM wanted to know. George W. Bush, the Americans agreed. There was small talk about Bush, including his less than consuming interest in Europe. "Well," Blair said wryly, "they'll love him in Britain."

It was a convoluted witticism: for many of Blair's fellow Britons, Europe means the Continent, and they, like the George W of the popular imagination, don't care much for it. But the joke was on Blair, too. He's a committed European who can't afford politically to fully show it, especially with an election in a couple of months. He's an equally committed Atlanticist who nonetheless finds himself occasionally at odds with America. Now he's got to be all those things--and get along with a new man in the White House. When Blair and Bush meet for the first time this week at the presidential compound in Camp David, Maryland, it will be all George 'n' Tony, swathed in the comfy "special relationship" of Anglo-Americanism. Yet on matters of substance--on trade, on the environment, even on defense--the president and the prime minister have some real differences.

Britain remains Washington's staunchest big ally. But with something like a European identity arising out of prosperity and integration, the Anglo- American alliance is undergoing subtle but consequential shifts. Despite a pack of anti-European newspapers, Britain increasingly has a European attitude on key issues. The EU and the United States, which each represents about a quarter of the world economy, are embroiled in trade disputes. Britain has interests and EU treaty commitments that sometimes pit London against Washington. Which is where Blair finds himself on at least three issues: the EU ban on hormone-fed beef, most of it from America; the EU's preferential treatment of banana imports from member states' former colonies and the financing by Britain and other EU nations of the Airbus A380 superjumbo project.

On environmental issues, London has not disguised its strong disagreements with Washington, particularly in connection with the effect of greenhouse gases on climate change. Britain has tried to play the role of good cop with the world's No. 1 polluter, letting France and others crank up the anti-U.S. rhetoric. But ...