“Trump’s policy will lead everyone to agree to develop trade relations with the rest of the world and, therefore, will also increase the number of free trade agreements,” said Jean-Luc Demarty, who led the Commission’s sales department during the first Trump administration.
Overall, EU countries like France, Belgium or Austria, which have once dragged their feet by opening their sensitive markets, begin to see the agreements as a geopolitical necessity – not only as an economic bonus.
An example is France, whose whole political class had rejected the EU-mercosur trade agreement as politically and economically toxic, but which quietly softens its position in the light of Trump’s commercial offensive.
“It is not logical to remain obsessed with Mercosur, which was negotiated as a whole,” said Marie-Pierre Vedrenne, a liberal member of the European Parliament who is from the same modern party as Prime Minister François Bayrou.
“We have to change our state of mind, otherwise we will miss the progress of the world,” she added.
The transatlantic commercial relationship is the largest in Europe, with a bidirectional trade totaling 1.6 euros. The United Kingdom, China and Switzerland come next. Although the EU and China have explored the opportunity to reset their links in the light of Trump prices, a trade agreement is not in the cards – and this leads the EU to launch its net more widely.
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