European Union strikes a new free trade deal with the Philippines

The European Union and the Philippines announced a new free trade deal on Tuesday in the latest bilateral agreement struck by Brussels as it seeks to diversify its economy as tensions persist with traditional trading partners including China, Russia and the United States.

The EU's top trade negotiator, Maroš Šefcovic, said that he and Philippine Trade Secretary María Cristina Aldeguer-Roque structured the deal to grow the nearly 30 billion euros (around $35 billion) of annual trade between the 27-nation EU and the Southeast Asian nation of 115 million people.

“It also delivers stronger, more diversified supply chains at the moment when resilience has become a strategic priority,” Šefcovic said.

Trade is dominated by electronics, with the EU exporting aircraft, pork and pharmaceuticals while importing semiconductors, integrated circuits and industrial machinery manufactured in the Philippines.

The Philippines is the third nation from the ASEAN bloc after Vietnam and Singapore to sign a bilateral trade deal with the EU. Negotiations are ongoing between the European Commission and Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, while a larger free-trade agreement is hoped for in the long term between ASEAN itself and the EU.

“There is a bigger picture here too,” Šefcovic said. “This agreement sends a clear signal that the EU is reinforcing its engagement with the Indo-Pacific.”

The EU has sought growth and stability in new trade links from Australia to Argentina as the bloc itself is beset by a geopolitical maelstrom, including conflicts in the Middle East and the war in Ukraine.

The EU also has been dealing with the need to explore alternative energy sources, heightened tensions with the Trump administration, officials from EU member states accusing Russia of hybrid attacks, and China running a gargantuan trade imbalance and a near-monopoly over critical mineral supplies.

The EU deal with the Philippines roughly tracks with the “ middle powers ” strategy laid out at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this year by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. Last week, he was the guest of honor in the European Parliament in Strasbourg at the annual State of the European Union speech by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

She said then that the EU would forge a new kind of “ associated membership ” for Canada.

“In this new world, we must urgently reimagine our partnerships,” von der Leyen said during her speech.