This working paper by Nadia Garcia Santaolalla examines recent U.S. economic-security arrangements in security-sensitive trade as a window into how trade law is being used under geoeconomic strain. Focusing on arrangements with Malaysia, Cambodia, El Salvador, Guatemala and Argentina, it argues that thinner, more reversible and more asymmetric legal forms should not be dismissed simply as departures from trade law. They also show how legal form can organise pressure, adjustment, domestic implementation and contestation when familiar WTO pathways for recalibration and settlement have become less dependable. The paper asks how trade law should be read when the political setting in which it operates is changing, and why continued engagement with legal form matters for future settlement.