European policymakers are losing faith in American business

FOR much of the past three decades, American companies operating overseas benefited from a powerful assumption: that despite periodic political turbulence at home, the US remained a predictable and broadly reliable commercial partner.

That assumption is now under growing strain in Europe.

US President Donald Trump’s increasingly aggressive foreign policy posture is doing more than unsettling markets or complicating diplomacy. It is reshaping how European policymakers assess American business as a whole. US businesses are finding themselves exposed to political risk that originates not from their own conduct, but from Washington’s treatment of allies.