'Mother of all Trade Deals'

The EU-India trade agreement is an economic bonanza as it will merge two of the world's largest economic blocs into a single trade zone

- Seema Guha

INDIA and the European Union (EU) finally sealed the much-vaunted Free Trade Agreement (FTA) earlier this week. The deal which took nearly 18 years to get off the ground gained momentum after US President Donald Trump unleashed a disruptive tariff war on the world. This led to countries scrambling to hedge their bets against America’s unpredictability. “By combining our strengths, we reduce strategic dependencies at a time when trade is increasingly weaponised,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said after the announcement, in a veiled reference to Trump's assault on global trade. She put a finger on the logic driving the deal and acknowledged that trade is now an instrument of power, and that alliances are conditional.

Her statement reflected the reality of the Trumpian order, where enemies and friends are subjected to public humiliation. The President's play for Greenland has soured ties with Europe even more. Just days before, at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, the US President had lashed his North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies in a speech filled with taunts and barbs. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech at Davos got a standing ovation as he called out the disrupter by saying “... that the rules based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.”