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AbstractThe European Commission presented its Open, Sustainable and Assertive (OSA) trade strategy in early 2021, heralding the document as representing a new and strategic approach to countering dependency and strengthening resiliency. We analyse the OSA through policy paradigms, making two contributions to the trade policy literature. First, we show that embedded liberalism and fair trade—often presented as two trade paradigms —are rather elements of one, namely managed globalisation (MG). Using qualitative and quantitative content analyses, we argue that MG has been more influential in shaping 21st‐century trade policy than heretofore recognised in the literature. Second, we show that the OSA represents a paradigmatic rebalancing and complementarity, between the MG and a realist trade‐as‐foreign‐policy paradigm. The OSA represents an EU seeking to increase its capabilities in order to defend its values and interests, while simultaneously promoting the return to a rules‐based liberal international trading order; the co‐dominance of MG and trade‐as‐foreign‐policy represent an evolution from managing interdependence to managing dependency.

The European Union (EU) presented its new trade strategy in early 2021. This article assesses whether the strategy constitutes a path-altering development in EU trade policy. Drawing on concepts from Historical Institutionalism the article assesses the presence and influence of the permissive and productive conditions necessary for a critical juncture, meaning a path-altering policy development, to occur. The permissive conditions refer to the external environment, while the productive conditions are internal, referring to ideational (cognitive and normative) and instrumental developments. We find that although the EU responded instrumentally to changes in the international trading system, and a loosening of the liberal international order, the new trade strategy was not accompanied by a complete ideational change. The EU's normative outlook was little changed in 2021. The conclusion discusses how subsequent changes in the international environment and trade instruments may affect EU trade policy, and whether, over a longer time-period, the new strategy may nonetheless be identified as the start of a critical juncture.
European Union, trade policy, geo-economics, strategy, strategic autonomy, critical juncture, permissive conditions, productive conditions

Mercantilist policies, protectionism, Chinese and US violations of the spirit—if not always the rules—of the World Trade Organization, along with supply chain vulnerabilities, trade wars, and illegal state subsidies have all contributed to a rise in the weaponisation of commerce (using trade in response to, or to achieve, political decisions or acts) across the globe. The weaponisation and geo-politicisation of trade pose a challenge for the EU, which is poorly suited for a game of power politics. Its common commercial policy developed separately from the intergovernmental foreign and security policy. The level of exclusive EU competence differs across the two policy domains, as do decision-making processes. Drawing on work addressing ideational and instrumental levels of policy, we discuss how the EU is assessing the international environment through the ideational framework of strategic autonomy, and how this has shaped the construction of new trade defence instruments intended to protect against economic and technology-related security risks. Focusing specifically on trade defence instruments addressing security concerns, which are justified in the 2023 European Economic Security Strategy (especially in the pillar focusing on protecting against economic security risks), we show that the distinction between commercial policy and traditional security concerns is eroding.