The European Union’s growing trade friction with Vietnam illustrates how global protectionist pressures are reshaping even relationships once seen as mutually beneficial. Since the EU–Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) took effect in 2019, Hanoi has emerged as the bloc’s largest commercial partner in Southeast Asia, with trade volumes reaching nearly €67 billion ($79 billion) in 2024.

Yet the promise of balanced integration has given way to persistent asymmetry. The EU’s trade deficit with Vietnam ballooned to about $50 billion last year, and data from the first half of 2025 suggest that gap is widening further. For Brussels, this trajectory is politically and strategically untenable, particularly at a moment when trade balances are once again shaping diplomacy.

Malaysia is emerging as a standout in Southeast Asia, drawing increasing interest from foreign investors who are attracted by its improving economic growth, stable government, and a rising currency. This trend is especially notable as neighboring countries grapple with political instability. In July alone, foreign investors…

Global factories just flashed a warning light. Private PMI readings for September show manufacturing slipping back into contraction across large parts of the world, with the euro area falling below 50 again, the UK tightening further, and much of Asia stuck in the doldrums.

The proximate drivers are familiar but newly potent in combination: softer U.S. growth that cools final demand, another leg down in China’s domestic orders, and the looming bite from the Trump administration’s widening tariff net, which is already forcing exporters to rethink pricing and routing. The result is a textbook late-cycle pattern, new orders weakening faster than output, export books thinning, and managers running plants for cash rather than growth.