Relative to the EU’s total external trade in 2025, the current map of agreements places countries already covered at 49% of trade. Added to these are countries with which negotiations are under way or completed, accounting for 7% of trade. China and the United States alone represent 34% of external trade. Their weight correspondingly limits the room for diversification that new treaties can still offer.
Excluding Russia, Taiwan and beneficiaries of the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), countries still likely to be the subject of an agreement now represent only 4.5% of external trade. Looking ahead, the EU’s playing field is reduced to the remaining 10%, those of countries outside any agreement in force or in preparation.
Shaken by trade tensions with Washington and Beijing, the European Union has concluded a series of agreements in recent years and revived other negotiations. No sooner had the Mercosur file been signed than it completed its talks with India, Australia and Indonesia, and brought four other countries to the table.
The European machine is running at full capacity to diversify outlets. It is driven by the protectionist turn of the United States and by China’s rise, two powers with which no agreement is envisaged in the short or medium term.
The Union is no newcomer to free trade. It has already concluded some forty trade agreements, covering nearly a hundred countries and territories.
These texts include free-trade agreements, association agreements and economic partnership agreements.
Many developing countries must also be set aside. The immediate interest of an agreement there is lower, since they already benefit from the GSP.
This sequence brings to seven the number of agreements nearing completion. According to the assessment drawn up in Brussels, the commercial ferment should nevertheless subside quickly: once these texts are closed, the pool of potential partners will be almost exhausted.