Trump tantrums push Europe to look east
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. NEW DELHI : Negotiations for “the mother of all deals", which has been almost 20 years in the making, finally concluded this week. In EU President Ursula von der Leyen’s own words: “We are creating a market of 2 billion people.
This is a tale of two giants—the world's second- and fourth-largest economies. Two giants who choose partnership in a true win-win fashion. A strong message that cooperation is the best answer to global challenges." It wouldn’t be wrong to say that India and the EU had almost given up on the free trade agreement—first in 2013, when they hit pause, and later in 2015, after the EU played tough over the trial of two Italian marines who shot Indian fishermen off the Kerala coast in 2012.
It was only after the covid-19 pandemic hit—and with it the realization that the over-concentration of supply chains in one part of the world can seriously compromise global production lines—that the decks were cleared for talks to restart. The two sides revived negotiations in 2022, but pressed the accelerator after US President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025 and began slapping (literally) friend-and-foe-agnostic tariffs. Together, India and the EU represent a combined market of nearly $27 trillion and about 25% of global gross domestic product (GDP).
Wondering if we—India and the EU—should thank Trump for playing midwife here? Perhaps China also deserves a little credit, given the growing realization in the EU that Beijing is hollowing out its manufacturing base. Both India and the EU, while celebrating, are being careful not to needle or goad Trump with their words. The US is one of India’s top five trade partners, with bilateral trade exceeding $100
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