Geopolitical Distance and Targeted Trade: Evidence from Product-Level Export Controls

Trade policy in advanced economies is closely intertwined with concerns about technology and geopolitical rivalry. Using product-level data on export-related trade interventions, we characterize how contemporary export-side interventions are allocated across products, destinations, and bilateral trade relationships. We show that export controls are broad in regulatory scope but economically concentrated on high-value trade flows. Export controls disproportionately target high-technology products and economically important trade relationships, while geopolitical distance shapes their allocation in a nonlinear manner, with the strongest associations for high-technology trade between geopolitical rivals. Finally, a decomposition of targeting patterns shows that modern export controls are organized primarily around products rather than destinations, consistent with a technology-centered regulatory framework.