{"id":76191,"date":"2026-02-02T02:30:32","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T17:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2026\/feb\/01\/the-guardian-view-on-the-eus-answer-to-trump-trade-without-threats"},"modified":"2026-02-02T02:30:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T17:30:32","slug":"the-guardian-view-on-the-eus-answer-to-trump-trade-without-threats-editorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76191","title":{"rendered":"The Guardian view on the EU\u2019s answer to Trump: trade without threats | Editorial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Europe\u2019s India and Vietnam deals signal a historic shift away from coercion towards cooperation that respects developing countries\u2019 sovereignty <\/p>\n<p>For the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, the EU\u2019s trade pact with India was the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2026\/jan\/27\/eu-and-india-sign-free-trade-agreement\">mother of all deals<\/a>\u201d. Seen from the other end of the telescope, it looked like the <a href=\"https:\/\/adamtooze.substack.com\/p\/is-india-eu-a-big-deal-mexicos-slow\">mouse of all deals<\/a>, with just \u20ac4bn (\u00a33.5bn) in tariff reductions \u2013 a rounding error in a \u20ac180bn trading relationship. But that misses the point: this is about economic heavyweights resetting the terms of their cooperation because of Donald Trump\u2019s use of tariffs as a tool of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c74vyr44xn3o\">economic and political compulsion<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Last week marked a turning point. In upgrading ties with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/asia-pacific\/vietnam-hails-upgrade-diplomatic-ties-with-eu-historical-milestone-2026-01-29\/\">Vietnam<\/a> in the wake of its India deal, Europe is no longer trying to lock Asian partners into fixed industrial roles. The EU wants Hanoi to move into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/asia-pacific\/eu-vietnam-agree-boost-work-minerals-chips-trusted-5g-draft-document-says-2026-01-28\/\">hi-tech production<\/a>. That shift will probably displace Vietnam\u2019s labour-intensive manufacturing elsewhere. India is an obvious beneficiary, able to absorb that demand.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2026\/feb\/01\/the-guardian-view-on-the-eus-answer-to-trump-trade-without-threats\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Europe\u2019s India and Vietnam deals signal a historic shift away from coercion towards cooperation that respects developing countries\u2019 sovereignty For the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, the EU\u2019s trade pact with India was the \u201cmother &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":307,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[221,530,62,4,61,1536,430,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-european-union","category-india","category-politics","category-south-and-central-asia","category-trade-policy","category-vietnam","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76192,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76191\/revisions\/76192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}