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There are many things for Europeans to worry about as they watch the Trump administration blow up the international order. There is the chaos of having international markets careening around the whims of one man. There is the ominous talk from an aggressive superpower lusting over Greenland. There is the catastrophic dismantling of efforts to rally the world to address the climate crisis.

But for certain European countries, Donald Trump poses a threat that taps into a more intimate and sickeningly primal fear: that Americans will force-feed them our disgusting chicken. Specifically, our “chlorine chicken,” Europe’s term for American chemically washed poultry.

“EXCLUSIVE: UK-US Trade Deal: Keep Your Chlorine Chicken America, Britain Must Not Pay This Price,” read one British headline from May. “Don’t Like the Idea of Chlorinated Chicken? You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet,” read another.

The panic over “chlorine chicken” is a noble British tradition that reappears every time the public considers the prospect of deepening its economic entanglement with the U.S. This particular European bogeyman dates back to 2014, when the U.S. and the European Union were negotiating a trans-Atlantic trade agreement. All the European countries shared the U.S. poultry aversion at the time: Germany calls it, we’re happy to report, chlorhühnchen. But the U.K. has more justification for its fears these days, as Brexit left its regulations more open to adjustment.

Now, the nation is in the grip of its latest chicken panic: British media have reported that the Trump administration is once again pressuring the U.K. to concede some of its food standards. In December, the Telegraph reported an alarming story with the headline “White House Demands British Supermarkets Stock Chlorinated Chicken.” According to the report, it all came down to a $40 billion technology........

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