What causes you to perceive the EU to be less protectionist?

The EU precovid had a net positive trade balance with the rest of the world. [1].

The US precovid had a net negative trade balance of nearly $50 Bn a month. [2].

The balance of trade between the US and EU is quite remarkably in the favor of the EU for trade with a "protectionist state ". How do you explain this discrepancy? If the US is so protectionist why are exports as a percentage of its GDP 1.58 times smaller than that of the EU [3][4]?

[1]: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/d... [2]: https://www.bea.gov/news/2020/us-international-trade-goods-a... [3]: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... [4]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/B020RE1Q156NBEA

As I replied to safety1st, a trade surplus is not evidence of protectionism. The EU has a comparable (slightly better) Weighted Mean Tariff Rate to the US, and both are the most open large economies in world.

It's unsupportable nonsense to claim otherwise.

Tariffs are only *one* means of trade policy. Pretending that they are the end all be all is nonsense. One quick example: France passed a Tax bill which targets only companies with revenues of more than 25 million euros there and 750 million globally. The catch? There's 30 companies which it applies to, but only one which is French[1]. Thus it is officially classified as merely local tax and not a tariff but in effect is a tariff on large foreign companies to give pricing advantages to local French ones. But per your measurement is a zero percentage tariff.

There are plenty of other subsidies and policy making ways to be protectionist.

And if it really were such nonsense to suggest other wise, why can you not explain the discrepancy of the US - EU trade balance. It should be simple.

[1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48947922

Wait what? The US runs a massive trade deficit with the world because it's extremely open about giving other countries access to its markets. The EU doesn't, in some years it actually runs a surplus. They're not ultra protectionist like China but I was certainly under the impression that they were more so than the US.

See "Free Trade Rankings, 2019" here: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/040115/which-countr...

A trade surplus is not evidence of protectionism. The most common metric to measure protectionism (in as far as it can be measured statistically) is the Weighted Mean Tariff Rate. Compare the EU at 1.48% to the US at 1.52% - the EU is slightly lower and both are among the lowest in the world, certainly of the large economies.

It's literal misinformation to say that the EU is more protectionist than the US. It was a Trump talking point, and never based in fact.

EU: https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/tariff-rate-appl...

US: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/tariff-rate-appli...

If Weighted Mean Tariff rates are the only measurement for trade that could be true. But it is not. You have subsidies and you have policy and regulations which can cause non market barriers to entry. Case & point: China doesn't have any tariff on American social media companies but simply bans American companies. Per your chosen measurement, that is simply not considered.