Geoeconomic Exposure and EU Industrial Policy: Export Dependence Amid US–China Techno‐Nationalist Rivalry

This article examines how export dependencies shape the EU’s industrial policy dynamics amid intensifying techno-nationalist rivalry between the US and China. While existing scholarship on how the intensifying geopolitical competition drives the EU’s “new industrial policy” has focused primarily on import dependencies, foreign direct investment, and political/security alliances, we argue that export dependence constitutes an equally consequential yet underexplored dimension of what we conceptualize as geoeconomic exposure. Advancing a critical political economy framework and incorporating insights from the growth model literature, we develop a framework for analyzing the export dependence element of geoeconomic exposure across two key dimensions of export dependence: first, the national economy and its growth model as a whole; and second, particular (export) sectors and their lead firms. Using descriptive statistical indicators, we map export dependence across five EU member states (Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Slovenia) and show that, despite notable constituencies tied to Chinese demand, EU economies are structurally far more exposed to US markets. To illustrate how export dependencies shaped geoeconomic exposure and drove industrial policy dynamics, we then present three short case studies on the positioning of (a) Germany, Spain, and Slovenia in the process of the EU’s imposition of tariffs on Chinese-made EVs, (b) LVMH’s efforts at pacifying the EU’s relations with both the US and China, and (c) Dutch export controls of semiconductor manufacturing equipment. By foregrounding export dependencies as an element of geoeconomic exposure, this article advances a non-deterministic framework for understanding the structural conditions shaping actors’ strategizing in EU industrial policy amidst the emerging “geotech” world.