The European Union’s Anti-Coercion Instrument (ACI) has been frequently described as both the EU’s “trade bazooka” and an innovative trade-based foreign policy instrument. Introduced to strengthen the EU’s capacity to respond to economic coercion and a flagship initiative of the EU’s so-called geoeconomic turn, the ACI has nonetheless remained unused since its adoption. Focusing on the absence of ACI activation during tensions between the EU and the United States over the sovereignty of Greenland in early 2026, this article examines the internal reasons and implications of this non-use for EU actorness in external economic relations. Bringing together literatures on internal contestation in EU policymaking and debates on EU external actorness, the analysis investigates how emerging coalitions, institutional disagreements, and competing interpretations of economic coercion condition both the strategic signalling and deployment of the ACI, an instrument not requiring consensus. Methodologically, the paper brings together process tracing and social network analysis to map decision-making dynamics around the ACI and its consequences. By examining deterrence and internal contestation together, the paper contributes to broader debates on EU actorness and geoeconomic power as well as on the limits and possibilities of trade-based foreign policy in a context of intensifying geopolitical competition.

Recent shocks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the intensification of the US–China tech rivalry, and the souring of relations between the EU and the United States, have exposed vulnerabilities embedded in the Union’s overdependence on external suppliers for critical raw materials and advanced technologies. Faced with governance and institutional limits in the Treaties, especially the requirement for unanimity in the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the EU has used trade and related legal tools to address vulnerabilities, build resilience, and prevent disruptions. These strategies are also reshaping the EU’s role as a global actor and its approach to international governance.
Drawing on recent initiatives such as the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), the EU Chips Act, and the EU energy framework, this paper examines EU crisis-reduction governance measures within supply chains to analyse the EU’s responses to over-dependencies through diversification, regulatory intervention, and the reorientation of its Open Strategic Autonomy. These measures will be considered and contextualised within the EU’s regulation of strategic supplies and its role as a global actor.
Using a qualitative case-study approach that combines legal research and policy analysis, it will analyse how these instruments reshape the EU’s external economic partnerships and global role. This paper argues that the securitisation of the EU trade sector is raising questions that go beyond crisis-response mechanisms and influence its normative identity and governance. Each instrument will be analysed both in relation to the specific vulnerability it addresses, such as dependence on China for critical raw materials, semiconductor supply chains, or energy security, and the broader international implications of this strategy. This paper examines how the EU uses trade policy to govern crises, manage vulnerabilities through law, and redefine its global economic strategy.

The so-called ‘geopolitical turn’ in EU trade policy has been characterised by the introduction of new measures including in trade defence, investment screening, the anti-coercion instrument technological sectors and respond to the use of trade as a way of exerting political pressure. Beyond these headline policy changes, another important focus of EU action has been free trade agreements. These serve as a means of perpetuating some of the established liberal order trade rules and way to reinforce alliances with ‘like-minded’ partners in the face of a protectionist USA, rising China, aggressive Russia that have upended the international order. FTAs also aim to bolster the EU’s position in the global economy, including through guaranteeing access to markets and resources. Recent innovations in FTAs, such as energy and critical raw minerals chapters in the modernised Association Agreement with Chile, directly address EU concerns over future competitiveness in green and digital technologies and its geostrategic objective of reducing economic reliance on few suppliers and markets and on economic rivals. Leveraging public documents relating to FTAs and the work of their implementation committees and materials from interviews with key informants, this paper addresses the question of the extent to which recent ‘geopoliticisation’ has altered the design and implementation of recent EU FTAs, paying particular attention to discrepancies between stated objectives and practical operationalisation. It turns attention to an aspect of trade policy underexplored by the growing literature on the geopoliticisation of EU trade policy.