Can the transatlantic trading order survive the rise of populism? In his lecture at the ECPS Academy Summer School 2026, “Europe Between Oceans: The EU in the Age of Geoeconomics, Populism, and Strategic Competition,” Professor Alasdair Young argues that Donald Trump’s second presidency marks a fundamental break with more than seventy years of EU–US trade cooperation. Moderated by Dr. Jessica Lawrence, the session explores how populist narratives, protectionism, geopolitical rivalry, and legal innovation are transforming the politics of international trade. Combining historical perspective with international political economy and trade law, Professor Young demonstrates that the future of transatlantic relations will depend not only on commercial negotiations but also on reconciling economic openness with democratic legitimacy, strategic autonomy, and global stability.
Reported by ECPS Staff
The transformation of transatlantic trade relations has become one of the defining features of the contemporary international political economy. For more than seven decades, the economic partnership between the European Union and the United States served as one of the principal pillars of the liberal international order, underpinning global trade liberalization, multilateral governance, and unprecedented levels of economic integration. Although the relationship periodically experienced disputes over agricultural regulation, industrial subsidies, market access, and monetary policy, these conflicts were generally managed within a shared commitment to rules-based cooperation and institutional compromise. Today, however, intensifying geopolitical rivalry, the resurgence of economic nationalism, the growing politicization of trade, and the rise of populist politics have fundamentally altered the assumptions that long sustained transatlantic economic cooperation. Understanding this transformation therefore requires moving beyond conventional analyses of tariffs and trade balances to examine the deeper political, institutional, and ideological forces reshaping the global trading system.
These questions lay at the heart of the ECPS Academy Summer School 2026, held under the theme "Europe Between Oceans: The EU in the Age of Geoeconomics, Populism, and Strategic Competition." Bringing together leading scholars and participants from around the world, the programme explored how geopolitical competition, strategic autonomy, democratic polarization, and technological rivalry are redefining Europe’s external relations and the future of global governance. Within this broader intellectual framework, Professor Alasdair Young, Neal Family Chair at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology, delivered a historically grounded and theoretically sophisticated lecture entitled "Populism Trumped Transatlantic Trade Cooperation." Drawing upon decades of research on European Union trade policy and international political economy, Professor Young argued that the second Trump administration represents not simply another period of transatlantic commercial tension but a fundamental break with the cooperative logic that has characterized EU–US trade relations since the creation of the post-war trading order. By situating recent tariff disputes within the longer evolution of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the broader history of transatlantic economic integration, he demonstrated that contemporary protectionism reflects a deeper transformation in the politics of international trade itself.
The session was expertly moderated by Dr. Jessica Lawrence, Senior Lecturer at the University of Essex School of Law, whose scholarship on international economic law, World Trade Organization governance, European Union internal market regulation, and the intersection of trade with broader public policy objectives provided an ideal intellectual point of departure for the discussion. Her introductory remarks effectively framed the lecture by emphasizing that recent developments—from the so-called "Liberation Day" tariffs and regulatory disputes to growing tensions over sustainability standards, digital governance, and industrial policy—should be understood not as isolated trade disagreements but as manifestations of broader geopolitical and institutional change. By encouraging participants to consider whether transatlantic trust has been fundamentally weakened, whether the WTO can continue to anchor the global trading system, and whether regional arrangements may increasingly displace multilateral governance, Dr. Lawrence situated Professor Young’s lecture squarely within the Summer School’s overarching exploration of geoeconomics, populism, and strategic competition.
Combining historical analysis, international political economy, trade law, and comparative politics, Professor Young challenged participants to rethink the relationship between populism and international commerce. He argued that Donald Trump’s protectionist agenda cannot be adequately explained through conventional accounts centered on sectoral interests or geopolitical competition alone. Instead, it reflects a distinctive populist conception of trade in which imports, trade deficits, and international economic interdependence are interpreted as evidence of exploitation by foreign actors enabled by domestic political elites. Equally significant was his analysis of the European Union’s response, which demonstrated that Europe’s acceptance of an asymmetrical trade agreement reflected not diplomatic weakness, but the complex strategic constraints imposed by wider security considerations, including NATO and the war in Ukraine. Offering a rich synthesis of historical perspective and contemporary policy analysis, the lecture provided participants with a compelling analytical framework for understanding how populism, protectionism, legal innovation, and geopolitical rivalry are collectively reshaping one of the world’s most consequential economic partnerships and, with it, the future of the liberal international economic order.
The Transatlantic Economy: A Relationship Built on Deep Integration Rather Than Simple Trade
Professor Young began his lecture by challenging one of the most common misconceptions surrounding EU–US economic relations: that the relationship can be adequately understood through bilateral trade balances alone. Public debate, particularly under Donald Trump’s second administration, has become heavily dominated by discussions of merchandise trade deficits, tariff levels, and market access. While these indicators undoubtedly matter politically, Professor Young argued that they provide only a partial—and often misleading—picture of the transatlantic economy. To appreciate the significance of recent policy changes, it is first necessary to understand the extraordinary depth and complexity of economic integration that has developed across the Atlantic since the end of the Second World War.
Presenting a series of comparative economic indicators, Professor Young demonstrated that the transatlantic economy remains unparalleled in both scale and intensity. Together, the European Union and the United States account for roughly one-third of global gross domestic product and a similar proportion of world imports, while also representing approximately one-quarter of global exports. Yet these aggregate trade figures reveal only part of the relationship. The defining characteristic of transatlantic economic integration, he argued, is not merchandise trade but investment. Cross-Atlantic foreign direct investment (FDI) constitutes the largest bilateral investment relationship anywhere in the world, creating dense networks of production, ownership, finance, research, and innovation that extend far beyond conventional trade statistics.
Professor Young therefore encouraged participants to reconceptualize the Atlantic economy as an integrated production system rather than merely a trading relationship. American companies operating within Europe generate enormous sales through their European subsidiaries, while European firms maintain similarly extensive operations throughout the United States. Consequently, many goods and services exchanged across the Atlantic are produced within multinational corporate structures whose operations transcend national boundaries. This level of economic interdependence means that political decisions affecting trade frequently influence investment, employment, production networks, and technological cooperation simultaneously.
Beyond the Trade Deficit: Understanding the Real Structure of EU–US Economic Relations
One of Professor Young’s central analytical interventions concerned the political misuse of bilateral trade statistics. Throughout Donald Trump’s political career, trade deficits—particularly deficits in manufactured goods—have occupied a central place in his criticism of international trade. According to Professor Young, however, this emphasis ignores essential dimensions of the transatlantic economy.
The Trump administration’s narrative focuses almost exclusively on the American merchandise trade deficit with the European Union. Yet Professor Young demonstrated that this perspective neglects two equally important realities. First, the United States enjoys a substantial trade surplus in services, reflecting American comparative advantages in finance, technology, digital services, consulting, education, and intellectual property. Second, and even more importantly, American multinational corporations generate significantly higher commercial sales through their European affiliates than European firms achieve through comparable operations in the United States. When investment-related economic activity is incorporated alongside conventional trade flows, the transatlantic relationship appears considerably more balanced than merchandise trade statistics alone would suggest.
This distinction carries significant political implications. Populist narratives frequently portray trade as a zero-sum competition in which one country necessarily benefits at another’s expense. Professor Young argued that the transatlantic economy instead illustrates the opposite principle: sustained investment integration creates mutual dependence and shared prosperity that cannot be captured through simple import-export calculations. Policies designed exclusively to reduce merchandise trade deficits therefore risk disrupting broader economic relationships that generate substantial benefits for both partners.
Equally significant was Professor Young’s observation that more than half of all transatlantic trade in goods occurs within multinational corporations themselves. Parent companies and subsidiaries routinely exchange components, intermediate goods, technologies, and specialized services across national borders as part of integrated production processes. Even transactions occurring formally between separate firms frequently take place within long-established supply chains characterized by stable contractual relationships rather than anonymous market exchanges. Consequently, imports often function not as substitutes for domestic production but as indispensable complements to it. Restricting such trade through tariffs may therefore increase production costs for domestic firms rather than protecting them from foreign competition.
From Cooperation to Conflict: The Historical Evolution of Transatlantic Trade Relations
Having established the exceptional nature of the transatlantic economy, Professor Young turned to its historical evolution, emphasizing that economic interdependence has historically been accompanied by extensive institutional cooperation. While disagreements have periodically emerged, they rarely displaced the broader commitment to multilateral governance that characterized EU–US relations for most of the post-war era. Understanding today’s tensions therefore requires distinguishing between recurring commercial disputes and the more fundamental transformation currently underway.
The earliest major disruption occurred during the Nixon Shock of 1971, when President Richard Nixon suspended the convertibility of the US dollar into gold, effectively bringing the Bretton Woods monetary system to an end. Simultaneously, the administration imposed a temporary ten-percent surcharge on imports as leverage to encourage trading partners to revalue their currencies. Professor Young emphasized that although these measures represented a dramatic departure from previous American policy, they remained explicitly temporary. Once negotiations concluded successfully through the Smithsonian Agreement, the additional tariffs were promptly removed. The episode therefore illustrates an important historical pattern: earlier trade conflicts sought to resolve specific macroeconomic problems without fundamentally challenging the legitimacy of multilateral cooperation itself.
A second period of tension emerged during the 1980s, when the United States increasingly adopted what became known as "aggressive unilateralism." Rather than relying exclusively upon multilateral negotiations, successive American administrations identified what they regarded as unfair foreign trade barriers and threatened unilateral retaliation to secure market access. While controversial, these policies nevertheless remained focused on particular commercial disputes rather than rejecting the broader institutional framework governing international trade.
Institutionalizing Trade Disputes: The WTO Era
Professor Young argued that the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 fundamentally transformed the management of transatlantic trade tensions. Under the WTO’s institutional framework, disputes increasingly became subject to formal legal procedures rather than unilateral political bargaining. This institutionalization helped contain conflicts while preserving the broader cooperative relationship between the European Union and the United States.
Several disputes discussed during the lecture illustrate this pattern. Long-running disagreements over hormone-treated beef and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) reflected American objections to European regulatory standards that restricted access for US agricultural exports. Although politically contentious, these cases remained confined to specific sectors and were ultimately addressed through established WTO dispute-settlement procedures.
Similarly, the prolonged conflict between Boeing and Airbus over alleged government subsidies generated years of litigation without fundamentally destabilizing transatlantic economic cooperation. Each side accused the other of unfairly supporting its domestic aircraft manufacturer, yet both accepted the legitimacy of resolving the dispute through multilateral legal mechanisms rather than abandoning the institutional framework altogether.
Professor Young also recalled the American safeguard tariffs on steel imports introduced during the early 2000s, which prompted measured European retaliation. Once again, despite political tensions, the dispute remained limited in scope and duration. Such episodes demonstrated the resilience of transatlantic cooperation precisely because both parties continued to recognize the authority of common international rules.
Cooperation as the Defining Characteristic of the Atlantic Partnership
Against this historical background, Professor Young advanced one of the lecture’s central arguments: although individual disputes frequently attracted media attention, they represented exceptions rather than the defining characteristic of EU–US trade relations. Throughout the post-war period, cooperation overwhelmingly outweighed conflict. He illustrated this point by tracing the joint leadership exercised by Europe and the United States in constructing the post-war trading system itself. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) emerged largely from Anglo-American cooperation, while the subsequent creation of the World Trade Organization likewise depended heavily upon sustained collaboration between Washington and Brussels. Rather than competing institutional visions, Europe and the United States shared a common commitment to progressively liberalizing international trade through mutually agreed multilateral rules.
Even beyond formal multilateral negotiations, successive initiatives sought to deepen bilateral cooperation. Following the end of the Cold War, the New Transatlantic Agenda and related initiatives attempted to strengthen regulatory coordination and reduce unnecessary barriers to commerce. Although many of these efforts achieved only modest practical success, they reflected an enduring political commitment to managing differences cooperatively.
Professor Young highlighted data privacy as one of the most notable examples of successful regulatory accommodation. European data-protection legislation imposed strict conditions governing transfers of personal information outside the European Union, while American national security legislation following the September 11 attacks required extensive intelligence access to private data. Rather than allowing these competing legal frameworks to disrupt broader economic relations, both sides repeatedly negotiated compromise arrangements that sought to reconcile European privacy protections with American security requirements. Although challenged before European courts on several occasions, these agreements demonstrated a continuing willingness to preserve cooperation even under difficult legal circumstances.
The Promise and Failure of TTIP
Professor Young concluded this historical overview by examining the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations, which represented the most ambitious attempt to deepen transatlantic economic integration in recent decades. Contrary to many public perceptions, TTIP did not seek sweeping regulatory harmonization. Instead, negotiations focused primarily on eliminating remaining industrial tariffs, liberalizing selected service sectors, improving public procurement access, and reducing unnecessary regulatory duplication through mutual recognition where appropriate.
Nevertheless, TTIP ultimately failed—not because of Donald Trump’s election alone but because political resistance had already emerged on both sides of the Atlantic. Within Europe, widespread public protests reflected fears that the agreement might weaken environmental, consumer, and food safety standards. In the United States, meanwhile, domestic regulatory agencies proved reluctant to accept European standards as functionally equivalent, while individual states resisted commitments concerning public procurement. Professor Young therefore emphasized that TTIP was already experiencing significant political difficulties before Trump’s first administration formally abandoned the negotiations.
Yet, despite TTIP’s failure, Professor Young argued that its broader significance lies elsewhere. Even unsuccessful negotiations reflected a continuing commitment to expanding transatlantic cooperation through negotiated institutional mechanisms. It is precisely this cooperative tradition, rather than any individual agreement, that distinguishes the historical transatlantic relationship from the confrontational and unilateral approach that has emerged under Donald Trump’s second presidency.
The Second Trump Administration: A Fundamental Departure from Post-War Trade Policy
Having situated contemporary developments within the broader historical evolution of transatlantic economic cooperation, Professor Young turned to the central argument of his lecture: the trade policy pursued during Donald Trump’s second presidency represents not merely another episode of protectionism but a profound departure from the principles that have guided American trade policy since the Second World War. While previous disputes had largely concerned specific sectors, regulatory disagreements, or temporary macroeconomic adjustments, the current administration has challenged the very logic of post-war trade liberalization. According to Professor Young, this transformation cannot be adequately explained through traditional political economy models emphasizing industrial lobbying, sectoral interests, or changes in the structure of the American economy. Instead, it reflects the distinctive political worldview of Donald Trump himself and the growing influence of populist narratives within American trade politics.
To illustrate this shift, Professor Young presented evidence showing the dramatic increase in American tariff levels during 2025. Although subsequent negotiations and exemptions moderated some of the initially announced tariff rates, the broader trend remained unmistakable. For the first time in decades, the United States had reversed the long historical trajectory toward progressively lower trade barriers that had characterized American policy since before the Second World War. Importantly, Professor Young emphasized that this reversal occurred without any comparable structural transformation within the American economy itself. There had been no sudden collapse of industrial competitiveness, no dramatic surge in demands for protection from domestic manufacturers, nor any major economic shock capable of explaining such a radical policy change through conventional economic reasoning. The explanation therefore lay elsewhere—in politics rather than economics.
Populism and Trump’s Understanding of International Trade
Professor Young argued that understanding Trump’s trade policy requires appreciating how he conceptualizes international commerce. Unlike earlier administrations, which typically focused on removing specific foreign trade barriers or expanding export opportunities for American firms, Trump’s approach is characterized by a far broader skepticism toward trade itself. Throughout his political career, extending back to the 1980s, Trump has consistently portrayed international trade as inherently disadvantageous to the United States. His concern is directed less toward individual regulatory disputes than toward imports generally, particularly manufactured imports that contribute to the American merchandise trade deficit.
Professor Young described this perspective as fundamentally populist. Within Trump’s narrative, trade deficits are not the product of complex patterns of comparative advantage, global production networks, or consumer preferences. Rather, they are presented as evidence that foreign governments—assisted by corrupt domestic political elites—have systematically exploited ordinary American workers. This interpretation transforms international trade from a mutually beneficial economic exchange into a moral struggle between "the people" and a coalition of foreign competitors and domestic elites.
The lecture explored several possible explanations for Trump’s enduring commitment to protectionism. Professor Young noted that Trump’s hostility toward trade predates his entry into electoral politics by several decades, suggesting that it reflects deeply held personal convictions rather than short-term political calculation. He referred to the work of political scientist Diana Mutz, whose concept of the "drawbridge-up worldview" offers one possible interpretation. According to this perspective, individuals who perceive the outside world primarily as a source of threat are naturally inclined to oppose immigration, globalization, and international trade alike. Such a worldview provides a coherent psychological foundation for Trump’s consistent preference for tariffs and economic nationalism.
Professor Young also discussed alternative scholarly interpretations. Some analysts, including Stacie Goddard and Abraham Newman, have argued that Trump’s trade policy reflects a form of neo-royalism, whereby tariffs serve principally to enhance presidential discretion by allowing the executive selectively to reward allies and punish opponents. While acknowledging that tariff authority undoubtedly strengthens presidential power, Professor Young questioned whether neo-royalism adequately explains Trump’s motivations. In his assessment, Trump’s long-standing commitment to tariffs predates the acquisition of executive authority itself. The concentration of political power resulting from tariff policy is therefore better understood as a consequence rather than the original objective of his protectionist agenda.
Geopolitics or Protectionism? Reassessing Trump’s Tariff Strategy
Another important theme addressed during the lecture concerned the relationship between trade policy and geopolitics. Many contemporary observers interpret Trump’s tariffs primarily as instruments of strategic coercion designed to advance broader foreign-policy objectives. Professor Young challenged this interpretation by distinguishing between exceptional geopolitical cases and the administration’s broader trade strategy.
He acknowledged that tariffs had occasionally been employed to exert diplomatic pressure—for example, threatening Colombia over the acceptance of deported migrants or Brazil concerning judicial proceedings involving former President Jair Bolsonaro. Yet these cases remained relatively limited and, in several instances, the threatened tariffs were either quickly withdrawn or never implemented. Similarly, despite political disagreements with European governments over issues such as Greenland, defence cooperation, or support for Ukraine, the administration generally refrained from imposing the sweeping punitive tariffs that many observers anticipated.
For Professor Young, these examples demonstrate that geopolitics alone cannot explain the administration’s overall trade policy. Rather than using tariffs primarily as instruments of foreign policy, Trump continues to view them principally as solutions to what he perceives as structural problems within international trade itself. His administration’s protectionism is therefore rooted fundamentally in a populist understanding of economic exchange rather than in a coherent geopolitical grand strategy.
The Legal Architecture of Trump’s Trade Policy
A particularly illuminating aspect of Professor Young’s lecture concerned the legal mechanisms through which the second Trump administration implemented its trade agenda. Rather than seeking comprehensive new trade legislation from Congress, the administration relied extensively upon creative reinterpretations of pre-existing statutory authorities. This strategy reflected both political calculation and institutional constraint. As Professor Young observed, the absence of congressional legislation suggests that the administration lacked sufficient political support to enact its protectionist programme through ordinary legislative channels. Instead, it expanded presidential authority by drawing upon emergency powers and older trade statutes originally intended for very different circumstances.
The most significant of these measures were the Liberation Day tariffs, introduced under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Initially imposing a twenty-percent tariff on European Union imports before temporarily reducing the rate to facilitate negotiations, the administration subsequently threatened to increase duties further if satisfactory agreements were not reached. Simultaneously, tariffs under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act were justified on national security grounds, extending earlier measures on steel and aluminium while adding automobiles, pharmaceuticals, and potentially aircraft and semiconductors to the list of targeted sectors.
Professor Young carefully distinguished between these various legal instruments. Section 232 investigations required formal administrative procedures and national security justifications, whereas Section 301 of the Trade Act addressed unfair foreign trade practices. Meanwhile, Section 122 provided temporary authority to respond to balance-of-payments crises. The administration’s increasing reliance upon multiple overlapping statutory provisions reflected its determination to preserve tariff authority even as judicial challenges intensified.
A particularly significant development occurred when the United States Supreme Court ruled that the administration had exceeded its authority under the IEEPA by imposing sweeping tariffs unrelated to genuine national emergencies. Professor Young explained that this decision forced the administration to reconstruct its trade policy through slower and more procedurally constrained legal mechanisms. Without IEEPA authority, the president could no longer credibly threaten immediate tariffs at will. Instead, future protectionist measures increasingly depended upon formal investigations under Sections 232 and 301, reducing executive flexibility while preserving significant scope for continued intervention.
Europe’s Response: Why the European Union Accepted an Unequal Agreement
Professor Young then turned to one of the lecture’s most consequential questions: why did the European Union ultimately accept a trade agreement widely perceived as asymmetrical? At first glance, Europe’s willingness to tolerate higher tariffs while making extensive concessions on investment, liquefied natural gas purchases, defense procurement, and market access appeared surprising. Yet Professor Young argued that the agreement can only be understood within the broader geopolitical environment confronting European policymakers.
The decisive factor, he suggested, was American escalation dominance. European leaders recognized that retaliatory tariffs might provoke not merely commercial countermeasures but broader strategic consequences affecting NATO, military support for Ukraine, and wider transatlantic security cooperation. Under such conditions, trade negotiations became inseparable from security considerations. Unlike China, which responded to American tariffs through symmetrical retaliation, the European Union confronted a much more complex strategic calculus in which commercial interests could not be isolated from defense and foreign policy.
Domestic economic considerations further reinforced this cautious approach. European governments also understood that tariffs impose significant costs upon importing countries themselves. Unlike President Trump, who consistently maintained that foreign exporters bear the burden of tariffs, European policymakers accepted the mainstream economic consensus that tariffs raise costs for domestic consumers and producers. Consequently, there was insufficient political support among member states for an escalatory strategy that risked both economic harm and geopolitical instability.
Professor Young emphasized that the resulting agreement should therefore not be interpreted simply as diplomatic weakness. Rather, it reflected a constrained strategic choice shaped by the intersection of trade policy, security dependence, domestic political calculations, and broader geopolitical uncertainty. The episode vividly illustrates how the second Trump administration has fundamentally altered the relationship between economics and security within the transatlantic partnership, making future trade negotiations inseparable from wider questions concerning the political future of the Atlantic alliance itself.
The Future of Transatlantic Trade: Between Strategic Adjustment and Structural Transformation
In the concluding section of his lecture, Professor Young shifted from diagnosing the contemporary crisis in transatlantic trade relations to assessing its longer-term implications for the liberal international economic order. While acknowledging that Trump’s second presidency has fundamentally disrupted established patterns of cooperation, he cautioned participants against interpreting current developments either as the complete collapse of globalization or as a temporary political aberration that will inevitably disappear with a future change of administration. Instead, he argued that the transatlantic trading relationship is entering a period of structural adaptation in which both the United States and the European Union are reassessing longstanding assumptions concerning openness, interdependence, and economic security. The precise trajectory of this transformation remains uncertain, yet its implications are likely to extend well beyond the current political cycle.
Professor Young emphasized that contemporary trade conflicts cannot be understood simply through the language of winners and losers. Much of the public debate surrounding tariffs assumes that protectionist measures primarily harm foreign exporters while benefiting domestic industries. Throughout the lecture, however, he repeatedly challenged this assumption by drawing upon well-established principles of international economics. Tariffs are collected by the importing country and are generally borne—at least in substantial part—by domestic consumers, firms, and downstream producers through higher prices and increased production costs. While particular industries may receive temporary protection from foreign competition, the broader economy typically experiences reduced efficiency, increased inflationary pressures, and declining competitiveness.
This distinction is particularly important because it exposes the tension between economic analysis and populist political narratives. Professor Young observed that President Trump consistently presents tariffs as payments made by foreign governments, a characterization that enjoys considerable political resonance despite contradicting mainstream economic understanding. Such narratives simplify complex international production networks into easily understandable stories of national victimhood and economic exploitation, thereby reinforcing broader populist appeals centered upon sovereignty, fairness, and national renewal. The persistence of these narratives demonstrates that trade policy increasingly functions as a symbolic political instrument as much as an economic policy tool.
Is the World Entering an Era of Peak Protectionism?
Professor Young invited participants to consider whether the extraordinary escalation of tariff measures witnessed during 2025 might ultimately represent the high-water mark of contemporary protectionism rather than the beginning of an indefinite upward trajectory. He avoided making deterministic predictions but suggested several reasons for cautious optimism.
One important constraint derives from the institutional environment itself. Judicial scrutiny has already limited some aspects of presidential tariff authority, most notably through court decisions questioning the administration’s expansive interpretation of emergency powers under the IEEPA. Future administrations may therefore encounter greater legal obstacles should they attempt similarly broad exercises of executive trade authority. Moreover, reliance upon alternative statutory mechanisms such as Sections 232 and 301 requires more extensive investigations, administrative procedures, and opportunities for legal challenge, thereby reducing the flexibility that initially characterized Trump’s trade strategy.
Economic realities may also impose practical limits upon sustained protectionism. As tariffs increasingly affect production costs, inflation, investment decisions, and consumer prices, domestic political support may weaken among sectors previously expected to benefit. Large multinational corporations operating integrated transatlantic supply chains face particularly complex adjustment costs, while export-oriented industries risk retaliatory measures from trading partners. These economic constraints do not eliminate the political appeal of protectionism but complicate its long-term sustainability.
Professor Young nevertheless cautioned against assuming that any future American administration will simply restore the pre-2016 status quo. Concerns regarding industrial resilience, supply-chain security, technological competition, and strategic dependence now extend across much of the American political spectrum. Although future governments may adopt less confrontational methods, greater emphasis upon industrial policy and economic security is likely to remain an enduring feature of American trade policy. Consequently, Europe must prepare for a transatlantic relationship in which strategic economic considerations occupy a far more prominent position than they did during the era of liberal globalization.
The WTO and the Resilience of Multilateral Governance
The lecture concluded with an assessment of the WTO and the broader future of multilateral trade governance. Professor Young acknowledged that the WTO currently confronts one of the most serious crises in its history. The paralysis of the Appellate Body, the increasing use of unilateral trade measures, and growing geopolitical rivalry have significantly weakened the institution’s capacity to enforce common rules. Yet he resisted suggestions that the multilateral trading system has become irrelevant.
Instead, Professor Young argued that the WTO continues to provide the essential legal and institutional framework within which the overwhelming majority of international trade still occurs. Even governments that increasingly resort to unilateral measures frequently justify their actions through existing WTO provisions or seek to preserve the broader institutional architecture. This paradox illustrates both the organization’s current weaknesses and its continuing importance. States may increasingly contest particular rules, yet relatively few advocate abandoning the multilateral trading system altogether.
The relationship between the United States, the European Union, and China will be especially significant in determining the future evolution of the WTO. Professor Young suggested that effective reform will require accommodating new patterns of state intervention, industrial policy, technological competition, and strategic rivalry while preserving the core principles of predictability, reciprocity, and rules-based cooperation that have historically distinguished the multilateral trading system. Achieving such reforms will undoubtedly prove difficult, but abandoning institutional cooperation altogether would likely generate even greater instability.
Concluding Reflections
Professor Alasdair Young’s lecture offered participants a historically informed, theoretically sophisticated, and policy-relevant examination of one of the defining transformations currently affecting the international political economy. By tracing the evolution of EU–US trade relations from the immediate post-war period to Donald Trump’s second presidency, he demonstrated that contemporary tensions cannot be understood merely as another episode within a familiar cycle of transatlantic disagreement. Rather, they represent a more profound reorientation of American trade policy, one rooted in populist politics, growing skepticism toward globalization, and the increasing fusion of economic and security considerations.
A particularly significant contribution of the lecture was its insistence upon historical perspective. Throughout more than seventy years of transatlantic cooperation, disputes over agriculture, aircraft subsidies, steel, regulatory standards, and exchange-rate policy repeatedly emerged without fundamentally undermining the broader institutional relationship. By situating today’s conflicts within this longer historical trajectory, Professor Young showed precisely why the current moment differs. The second Trump administration has challenged not merely individual policies but many of the assumptions that previously sustained the transatlantic economic partnership itself.
Equally valuable was his nuanced interpretation of the European Union’s response. Rather than portraying European restraint as diplomatic weakness, Professor Young demonstrated that policymakers confronted a far more complex strategic environment in which trade negotiations were inseparable from wider concerns regarding NATO, Ukraine, and transatlantic security. His analysis illustrated how contemporary geoeconomics increasingly blurs the boundaries separating commercial policy, foreign affairs, and national defense.
Perhaps the lecture’s most enduring insight concerned the interaction between populism and international trade. Protectionism, Professor Young argued, derives much of its political power not from economic evidence but from compelling narratives of national decline, external exploitation, and sovereign recovery. These narratives increasingly shape democratic politics on both sides of the Atlantic, ensuring that trade policy will remain deeply politicized regardless of future changes in leadership.
For participants in the ECPS Academy Summer School 2026, the lecture provided far more than an overview of current tariff disputes. It offered a comprehensive analytical framework for understanding how populism, legal innovation, geopolitical rivalry, and institutional change are collectively reshaping one of the world’s most important economic relationships. By integrating historical scholarship, international political economy, trade law, and contemporary policy analysis, Professor Young demonstrated that the future of transatlantic trade will ultimately depend not only upon commercial negotiations but also upon the broader capacity of liberal democracies to reconcile economic openness with political legitimacy, strategic resilience, and an increasingly contested international order.
