US-EU trade war: a new page from an old playbook?

Abstract

While much of recent trade war scholarship and news commentary has focused on the US-China trade war, this chapter is directed at the less publicized but longer running US-EU trade conflict. It questions whether there is anything new in the recent trade conflict between the US and the EU compared to their past conflicts. I argue that although the current trade war between the US and the EU differs to some extent from its twentieth century predecessors, in fact, it is only a new page in an old trade war playbook, suggesting that because the current trade war is nothing new, it would not be expected to affect the long-term durability of US-EU relations. As in the past, trade protectionism is still front and center, only now the sides are battling over new issue areas that reflect recent changes in the global trading system, such as the emergence of digital technology and electronic commerce. Tariffs are the main form of protection and retaliatory ammunition as was the case in earlier US-EU trade conflicts. The intermingling of international trade policy with foreign policy, commonly considered a more recent development, was already evident in the earlier US-EU trade wars. The sides have largely stayed in the context of international rules, and are using WTO processes to challenge perceived WTO violations. Furthermore, the chapter suggests that today's US-EU trade war does not pose the same kind of risks that the US-China trade war does.