EU profits as Trump turns away from trade: commissioner

Frankfurt

THE United States' new hostility to free trade deals under President Donald Trump is benefiting the European Union, the bloc's top trade official said Tuesday.

After Mr Trump's withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal in late January, "many countries are now turning to us, because they believe protectionism is not the right answer", European commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom told German business newspaper Handelsblatt.

"We are already negotiating with almost all of them, or preparing conversations" with the countries around the Pacific …