On his first overseas trip as U.S. president, Joe Biden’s plans for an international coalition that can stand up to Beijing are starting to come into focus.

The settlement on aircraft subsidies sealed Tuesday ahead of his talks with senior European Union officials in Brussels not only parks $11.5 billion of tariffs for the next five years, it also includes a commitment for the U.S. and the EU to tackle, together, "non-market practices of third parties” which could threaten Boeing Co. and its European rival Airbus SE.

That’s code for China. Officials in Washington and Brussels say that Beijing has exploited the gaps in the World Trade Organization’s rulebook to deploy as much as $500 billion of state aid to give its companies an unfair advantage in global trade. And Biden made clear that he aims for this to be just the start.