How the EU should respond to American subsidies

This year eueuthe European Union will celebrate a momentous achievement: its single market turns 30. The unfettered movement of goods, people, services and money within the bloc, together with an openness to foreign trade and investment, has served the remarkably well. But, among the leaders of member countries who had gathered in Brussels to talk about the single market as was published, the mood was more anxious than jubilant. There is a nagging fear that the ’s economic model may no longer be working.Climate change calls for a bold and swift transformation of the economy. Vladimir Putin has weaponised trade for geopolitical gain, fuelling fears that Xi Jinping, too, may one day do the same. America, once the guardian of a rules-based order, has become brazenly protectionist. Its lavish subsidies, some with “Made in [North] America” strings attached, appear to be luring European carmakers such as Volkswagen into setting up electric-vehicle battery factories on the western side of the Atlantic.