European responses to Trump’s trade policy: preference formation and multi-level policy making

After his inauguration in January 2025, President Trump immediately started to threaten the European Union with reciprocal and retaliatory tariffs to obtain a „better deal“ for the US in transatlantic trade. Many European countries and the EU Commission initially reacted sharply, calling for resistance and retaliation against the US demands. In the following six months, however, the positions of the Commission and several EU member states softened and became compromising with the EU-US accord in the End of July. The paper aims at explaining this variation by mapping the European policy-making process and identifying the drivers for European trade policy positions. It argues that the change is best understood as the result of a dynamic interplay of societal forces affected by potential new US tariffs, responsive national governments, and the EU Commission. Hence, European trade policy positions will be explained through a three-level analysis: first, domestic forces (interest groups, voters) shaping national governments’ positions in the cases of France and Germany, second, the EU Commission navigating between member state demands and its own agenda in conducting trade negotiations with the US, and third, the US positions influencing the expectations of societal actors, national governments, and the Commission.