The Italian government is satisfied with new funding promised by Brussels to European farmers and is signaling that it may cast its decisive vote in favor of the EU’s huge trade deal with the Latin American Mercosur bloc. Ahead of Friday’s vote by EU member countries, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Rome was happy with the European Commission’s efforts to make the deal more palatable. Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida also said the accord represented an opportunity — especially for food exporters. “Italy has never changed its position: We have always supported the conclusion of the agreement,” Tajani said on Wednesday evening. Yet they stopped short of saying outright that Italy would vote in favor of the deal. Instead, within sight of the finish line, Rome is pressing to tighten additional safeguards to shield the EU farm market from being destabilized by any potential influx of South American produce. Rome’s endorsement of the accord, which has been a quarter century in the making and would create a free-trade zone spanning more than 700 million people, is crucial. A qualified majority of 15 of the EU’s 27 countries representing 65 percent of the bloc’s population is needed. Italy, with its large population, effectively holds the casting vote. France and Poland are still holding out against a pro-Mercosur majority led by Germany — but they lack the numbers to stall the deal. If it goes through, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen could fly to Paraguay to sign the accord as soon as next week. The bloc’s other members are Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. ‘AN EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITY’ Italy praised a raft of additional measures proposed by the Commission — including farm market safeguards and fresh budget promises on agriculture funding — as “the most comprehensive system of protections ever included in a free trade agreement signed by the EU.” Tajani, who as deputy prime minister oversees trade policy, has long taken a pro-Mercosur position. He said the deal would help the EU diversify its trade relationships and boost “the strategic autonomy and economic sovereignty of Italy and our continent.” Even Lollobrigida, who has sympathized in the past with farmers’ concerns on the deal, is striking a more positive tone. At a meeting hosted by the Commission in Brussels on Wednesday, Lollobrigida described Mercosur as “an excellent opportunity.” The minister, who is close to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and is from her Brothers of Italy party, also said its provisions on so-called geographical indications would help Italy promote its world-famous delicacies in South America. It would mean no more ‘Parmesão,’” he said, referring to Italian-sounding knockoffs of the famed hard cheese. ONE MORE THING … Lollobrigida said Italy could back the deal if the farm market safeguards are tightened. The EU institutions agreed in December to require the Commission to investigate surges in imports of beef or poultry from Mercosur if volumes rise by 8 percent from the average, or if those imports undercut comparable EU products by a similar margin. Even Francesco Lollobrigida, who has sympathized in the past with farmers’ concerns on the deal, is striking a more positive tone. | Fabio Cimaglia/EPA “We want to go from 8 percent to 5 percent. And we believe that the conditions are there to also reach this goal,” Lollobrigida told Italian daily IlSole24Ore in an interview on Thursday. Meloni pulled the emergency brake at a pre-Christmas EU summit, forcing the Commission to delay the final vote on the deal while it worked on ways to address her concerns around EU farm funding. In response Von der Leyen proposed this week to offer earlier access to up to €45 billion in agricultural funding under the bloc’s next long-term budget. Giorgio Leali reported from Paris and Gerardo Fortuna from Brussels.

BRUSSELS — Donald Trump is turning his back on free trade and, with it, the €1.6 trillion transatlantic trade relationship. That’s motivating the European Union to do trade deals with just about everyone else. The United States accounts for 13 percent of world trade. The EU, the world’s largest single market spanning 27 nations and 450 million people, accounts for around 16 percent — and is looking to extend its lead. “Countries are lining up to work with us,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has told POLITICO. Since her second Commission was confirmed in December, von der Leyen has wrapped up talks on a long-awaited accord with the Latin American Mercosur bloc; called to strike a free-trade agreement with India this year; and launched or relaunched talks with the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and others. Here’s a rundown of the deals that Brussels wants to get done: MERCOSUR Why does it matter? Within a week of her second Commission being sworn in last December, von der Leyen flew to Montevideo, Uruguay, to shake hands with the leaders of the Mercosur countries — Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay — on a deal that would create a market of more than 700 million consumers on both sides of the Atlantic. What’s holding it back? European farmers, especially in France, still furiously oppose the deal, which has been in the works for a quarter century, fearing competition from cheap South American imports. France’s political leaders have taken a stand against the Mercosur deal, and there is opposition in Poland, Belgium and Ireland as well. The farmers refuse to be placated, even though the deal sets low import quotas on items such as beef, poultry and sugar. Then there’s the issue of deforestation, specifically in the case of Brazil, where some worry that companies may try to circumvent the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). Chances of it happening anytime soon? Trump’s all-out trade war has turned the tide on the Mercosur debate, leading some previously skeptical countries — like Austria — to shift toward the pro-deal camp. Even France appears to be wavering, with trade minister Laurent Saint-Martin telling POLITICO that Trump’s trade war is “a wake-up call on trade agreements.” Still, he maintains, the Mercosur agreement is unacceptable in its current form.  A window of opportunity would open after the May 18 presidential election in Poland — which currently holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU. A vote in the Council would take place in either September or October, on Denmark’s watch, with the final signature expected by year’s end. Deal-o-meter rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️★ INDIA Why does it matter? Von der Leyen flew to India in February with her new College of Commissioners to pitch an FTA that she called “the largest deal of this kind anywhere in the world.” A trade accord would forge a common market of nearly 2 billion people, tying India closer to its biggest trading partner, the EU. With India on track to become the world’s third-largest economy by the end of the decade, it’s no surprise that von der Leyen has put getting the deal over the line this year at the center of her diversification agenda. What’s holding it back? If the past teaches us anything, it’s that the EU must be clinical in its pursuit of an FTA with India. In 2013, a deal collapsed after six years and 15 rounds of talks, amid European frustration about market access in sectors ranging from cars to liquor. Fast forward to 2021, and the long-stalled talks were ignited once again into a three-part trade deal in the hope of solving issues such as India’s high duties on imported cars. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s main man in the talks, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, has earned a reputation as the world’s toughest trade negotiator. Another sensitive issue for New Delhi is the EU’s planned carbon border tax, with Goyal threatening a retaliatory levy that, he says, would sound “the death knell of manufacturing in Europe.” Chances of it happening anytime soon? Both von der Leyen and Modi have made it clear they want to get the deal done this year — a bold ambition if experience teaches us anything. Still, with Trump also pressing India to open up its market, New Delhi is seeking less coercive and more consensual trading relationships. Modi will also want to play Washington and Brussels off against each other to get the best deal. Goyal is due in Brussels on May 1-2 for his second visit of 2025, ahead of another round of formal talks from May 12-16 in New Delhi. Deal-o-meter rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️★★ AUSTRALIA  Why does it matter? Negotiations between Australia and the EU were launched in 2018, with 15 rounds held thus far. Reaching a deal would increase the bloc’s GDP by an estimated €4 billion. The EU ranks as Australia’s third-largest trading partner in goods, ahead of the U.S., and second in services. However, Brussels remains at a disadvantage when it comes to trading with Down Under, as competitors like Japan and the United Kingdom enjoy preferential access through the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Securing a deal would not only open up market access for European exports of cars and machinery, but also help the EU reduce its dependency on China for critical raw materials —  Australia being rich in deposits of minerals such as lithium and cobalt, as well as rare earth metals.  What’s holding it back? Beef and sheep meat. Talks collapsed just before the finish line in October 2023, when Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell walked away complaining of a lack of access to the EU market. The European Commission complained at the time that the Australian side had re-tabled agricultural demands that, it said, “did not reflect recent negotiations and the progress made between senior officials.” Australian farmers still want greater access to the EU market, but the Commission’s trade negotiators have little room to maneuver with Europe’s own farming lobby hostile to freer trade. Another sticking point is geographical indications (GIs), under which Australian producers would lose naming rights on products like Prosecco, Feta and Parmigiano Reggiano. Chances of it happening anytime soon? Australia’s May 3 general election — which is likely to return a government led by incumbent Prime Minister Anthony Albanese — could fire the starting gun on a new negotiating push. Farrell, the man who killed the EU deal in 2023, now says “the world has changed” following Trump’s tariff offensive. Even Australian farmers are saying that if the EU wants to live up to its role as a leader in trade, it needs to walk the walk and get the deal across the line. Farrell spoke earlier this month with Maroš Šefčovič, the EU’s chief trade negotiator, and says the two have agreed to meet up soon after the election. Deal-o-meter rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️★ INDONESIA Why does it matter? Indonesia is the largest economy in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) — a regional trade community — and the world’s fourth-most-populous nation. Its trading relationship with the EU pales by comparison. The EU is its fifth-largest trading partner, but Indonesia, despite its size, doesn’t even rank in the EU’s top 30. That spells untapped potential. What’s holding it back? Talks over the past decade have been bumpy, to say the least, with disputes repeatedly ending up before the World Trade Organization. Jakarta had hoped to wrap talks before its new government took power in October, but that proved too ambitious. The bloc wants Indonesia’s nickel ore for its steel and automotive industries, but Indonesia has banned exports — which the EU has successfully challenged at the WTO. Jakarta also seeks more latitude under the EUDR — which seeks to prevent forest land being cleared for cultivation and would impact its palm oil industry. The EU won’t budge.  Chances of it happening anytime soon? After an inconclusive 19th round last July, no 20th round has yet been penciled in. The sheer number of rounds held shows how drawn-out the process has become, with a landing zone for a deal eluding negotiators for almost a decade now. Deal-o-meter rating: ⭐️⭐️★★★ SOUTHEAST ASIA (PHILIPPINES, MALAYSIA, THAILAND) Why does it matter? The EU is also ramping up efforts to strengthen ties with other ASEAN nations — resuming stalled trade talks with Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. All count the EU among their top trading partners. The push comes as the bloc looks to catch up with rivals like China and the U.S. in the region.  With a market of over 660 million consumers, the 10-nation ASEAN is the EU’s third-largest trading partner outside Europe after the U.S. and China. Malaysia is also a member of the CPTPP, which could strengthen the EU’s drive to pursue membership, given that the U.K. is already a member of the trade alliance.  What’s holding it back? Disagreements over Malaysia’s palm oil industry, the second-largest in the world, led the two sides to put the deal on hold in 2013 — as with Indonesia, the EUDR became a sticking point along with concerns over sustainable practices.  In the case of the Philippines, concerns over previous Prime Minister Rodrigo Duterte’s human rights violations and hostility toward the West put an end to talks — which resumed in 2023 after Duterte stepped down. Similarly, a military coup in Thailand in 2014 led the EU to put discussions on hold. Chances of it happening anytime soon? Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim visited Brussels in January to push for a deal. Brussels expects a first round of negotiations to take place either before summer or later in 2025. Malaysia’s trade minister, Tengku Zafrul, expects talks to conclude next year. FTA talks with both the Philippines and Thailand are progressing, with the next rounds set for June — Brussels will host talks with the Philippines, while an EU delegation will head to Bangkok for the Thai negotiations. Several chapters in each negotiation have already been provisionally agreed. Deal-o-meter rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️★★ Koen Verhelst contributed reporting.

BRUSSELS — Donald Trump is an equal-opportunity mercantilist. When it comes to the European Union’s €198 billion trade surplus with the United States, he’ll claw at any sector he can. Brandishing 25 percent tariffs on EU steel and aluminum, the U.S. president has demanded that the bloc buy more American cars, fossil fuels, weapons, pharmaceuticals — and food. “They don’t take our farm products, they take almost nothing and we take everything from them … tremendous amounts of food and farm products,” Trump complained to journalists in Florida earlier this month, decrying his country’s €18 billion deficit in agri-food trade with Europe. Taking more of the first four is feasible. The Commission can lower its 10 percent duty on imported automobiles, while EU countries can purchase less oil from Kazakhstan, fewer missiles from South Korea, and smaller drug batches from Switzerland. These demands would hurt local industry, but they are doable if Brussels wants to appease the irascible ultranationalist. The fifth is not. A range of culinary, phytosanitary and political obstacles bar the way to Europe’s importing most American staples — from Texan beef and Kentucky chicken to Wisconsin milk and Kansas wheat. Then there’s the fact the new EU commissioners for agriculture and animal welfare, Christophe Hansen and Olivér Várhelyi, want to tightly regulate agri-food imports. It may be a bitter pill for the president to swallow. But not even his “Art of the Deal” can vanquish Europe’s Art of the Meal. THE INVISIBLE HAND PICKS EUROPEAN FOOD  Contrary to what Trump says, the imbalance in agri-food trade isn’t due to unfair customs duties. U.S. and EU rates are similarly low for most products: zero for hard liquor, a few percent for wine and cereals, and 5 percent to 10 percent for fruits, vegetables, cured meats, confectionery, canned food and processed goods. The exceptions are EU dairy and pork (often upward of 20 percent), yet these aren’t areas where American rivals have much of a chance anyway, given that the EU runs a massive surplus in both categories (Germany and Spain are top exporters). Moreover, the U.S. is protective too — for example, on beef — and accepted higher EU dairy duties in the 1988 Uruguay round of GATT negotiations. Why? Because it extracted a promise that the EU wouldn’t subsidize oilseed production. Why would that matter to the Americans? Because that’s what they’re best at cultivating. Farms in the U.S. are on average 10 times bigger than in the EU and are able to churn out raw materials: hunks of meat, blocks of cheese and silos full of cereals. However, apart from the odd Californian wine, the U.S. doesn’t have many specialty products to vaunt. Europe is the opposite: A mosaic of small, regionally diverse farms, its producers are uncompetitive in most commodities, but possess an advantage in traditional foods. For example, the continent has five times more “geographical indication” trademarks than the U.S., allowing its farmers to transform simple crops into premium goods.  It’s bad agribusiness but great gastronomy, which is the second reason Americans spend more on EU farm goods than vice versa. While Americans happily gobble and slurp European GIs, Europeans typically find U.S. foods too fatty, salty, sugary or alcoholic for their palates. “If you look at the product composition, it’s very different,” said John Clarke, until recently the EU’s top agricultural trade negotiator. “The EU exports mostly high-value products: wine, spirits, charcuterie, olive oil, cheese. The U.S. exports low-value commodities: soya, maize, almonds … the fact [these have] a lower unit value is a fact of life.” During Trump’s first term, a bad harvest in Brazil and Argentina at least gave Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker an opportunity to offer Washington an apparent concession: The EU would buy more American soybeans. Trump gleefully celebrated what was in fact a financial necessity for European farmers, who need soy for animal feed. This time that won’t work, though. Brazilian grain harvests are near record levels, while Ukraine is investing heavily in oilseeds. The Commission is rolling out a protein strategy that  encourages supply diversification and more domestic production. And Europeans are eating less red meat, dragging soybean demand down. PHYTOSANITARY PARANOIA If Trump wants Europeans to eat more American food, he’ll have to convince them to swallow something even tougher: U.S. food safety standards. Europeans might buy American software, movies and weapons, but they aren’t keen on U.S. beef pumped with hormones, chlorine-washed chicken or genetically modified corn. The main reason? Brussels’ precautionary principle — a regulatory approach that requires proof a product is safe before it can be sold. The U.S., by contrast, operates on a risk-based system, where anything not proven harmful is fair game. That divergence has created a trade minefield. American beef exports are capped at 35,000 metric tons annually under a special quota, thanks to an EU-wide ban on hormone-treated meat. U.S. poultry is largely locked out because of pathogen reduction treatments — a fancy way of saying Americans rinse their chicken in antimicrobial washes the EU deems unacceptable. Genetically modified crops, a staple of U.S. agribusiness, also face strict EU restrictions, requiring lengthy approvals and labeling rules that spook European consumers. Pesticides are another flash point. Today, over 70 different pesticides banned in the EU as toxic to human health and the environment remain widespread in U.S. grain and fruit farming. That includes chlorpyrifos, an insecticide linked to brain damage in children, and paraquat, a weedkiller associated with a higher long-term risk of Parkinson’s disease. As a result, Brussels imposes residue limits that frequently force U.S. growers to create separate, EU-compliant supply chains. While Trump may rage about tariffs and trade imbalances, it’s Brussels’ food safety regulations — not import duties — that are keeping much American food off European plates. And with the EU mulling even stricter crackdowns on imports that don’t conform to its standards, expect the transatlantic trade menu to get even leaner. DON’T ANGER THE FARMERS Trump may not be aware, but European capitals also witnessed furious farmer protests last year. Fear of foreign competition was one of the main triggers, with unions bitterly criticizing imports from Ukraine and South America’s Mercosur bloc for their looser production standards, laxer agrochemical use and cheaper agricultural land. Poland, Hungary and Slovakia have still not lifted their illegal blockades on Ukrainian grain, and the Commission is in no position to force them to do so. In fact, Brussels has responded by making fair pricing for farmers the lodestar of its upcoming agri-food policy. The EU even wants to apply “mirror clauses” to imports to align rules on animal welfare and pesticides, according to a leaked draft of a long-term policy vision due out this week. A surge in U.S. imports would likely prompt the same attacks. These could be politically decisive ahead of stormy presidential races this year in Poland and Romania, two European breadbaskets, as well as major elections in France, Italy and Spain in the next two years.  So is there no solution to Trump’s hunger for agri-trade parity? It seems not, unless the president decides to massively expand the U.S. military’s presence in the EU, bringing tens of thousands more peanut butter-loving troops to defend the continent’s security. It’s a crazy idea of course. Then again … Giovanna Coi contributed reporting.

The hack was first announced publicly in October and has been attributed by U.S. agencies to a Chinese government-linked hacking group known as Salt Typhoon. The effort targeted dozens of telecom companies in the U.S. and globally to gain access to U.S. political leaders and national security data. The timeline of the hacking effort, as well as the scope of the intrusion, was not previously disclosed. Jeff Greene, executive assistant director of cybersecurity at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and a senior FBI official said Tuesday that while agencies started cooperating on their investigations of Salt Typhoon’s activities in early October, the effort was first detected in “late spring and early summer.” He also warned that the breach is “ongoing” and that there was much law enforcement still did not know. “We cannot say with certainty that the adversary has been evicted,” Greene said. “We’re on top of tracking them down … but we cannot with confidence say that we know everything, nor would our partners.” Greene strongly urged Americans to “use your encrypted communications where you have it,” adding that “we definitely need to do that, kind of look at what it means long-term, how we secure our networks.” As many as 80 telecommunications companies and internet service providers, including AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, are believed to have been infiltrated in the hack. Earlier on Tuesday, CISA, the FBI, the National Security Agency, and partner agencies in New Zealand, Australia and Canada released a joint alert warning that Chinese hackers were targeting “major global telecommunications providers.” Officials declined to comment on specifics, but acknowledged that “there were servers used in various countries to facilitate this activity by the Chinese.” The United Kingdom did not sign on to the alert, making it the only nation in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group to be omitted. Greene attributed this to each country having “different considerations and timelines.” A spokesperson for the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre said Tuesday that the agency “support[s] our international partners issuing this advisory to help improve the collective resilience of telecommunications infrastructure,” and that the U.K. has a separate approach to mitigating cyber risks to its telecom providers. The officials from the FBI and CISA noted in their briefing that there were three groups of victims in the hack. The first group was an undisclosed number of victims, mostly in the “Capital Region,” according to the officials, who were impacted by stolen call records from telecom companies. The second group — a small number of political or government-linked individuals, all of whom have been notified by officials — had their private communications compromised, according to a senior FBI official who spoke anonymously as a condition of briefing reporters. While the officials did specify how many individuals were targeted, POLITICO previously reported that the phones of President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance were among those compromised, in both cases prior to the election. In addition, the Chinese hackers also accessed and copied U.S. court orders, which the FBI official said were attained through the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement statute program. This program allows law enforcement and intelligence agencies to submit court orders around intelligence collection from telecom providers. When pressed on whether hackers were able to access court orders for intelligence collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — which allows U.S. intelligence agencies to collect data on foreign targets — the FBI official declined to answer directly but acknowledged that “the CALEA environment does include court orders” for FISA investigations. The major hacking campaign has been an issue of increasing concern for U.S. lawmakers in recent weeks, with Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) describing it as the “most serious breach in our history.” “Unless you are using a specialized app, any one of us and every one of us today is subject to the review by the Chinese Communist government of any cell phone conversation you have with anyone in America,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s cyber subcommittee, said during a panel at last month’s Halifax International Security Forum.