This chapter explores the dilemma the EU confronts in leveraging the internal market as a source of international power. It challenges the widespread claim that the EU is undergoing a decisive ‘geopolitical pivot,’ arguing instead that there is little evidence the Union is weaponising interdependence or deploying market power for security-oriented economic statecraft—geopolitical moves that would contribute to eroding the rule-based international order. By contrast, recent initiatives such as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and the Artificial Intelligence Act demonstrate that the EU is assertively projecting its market rules outwards to sustain and reshape that order. This paradoxical response to rising global geopoliticisation stems from the EU’s internal architecture as a union of liberal democratic states, which predisposes it to wield market power in support of international regime-building in specific areas. Consequently, rather than investing in ambitious EU-level economic statecraft, the chapter recommends a dual strategy: first, strengthen Europe’s geopolitical capacity by gradually coordinating the economic statecraft of major Member States; second, bolster EU regulatory influence through the strategic calibration of externalisation efforts.