BRUSSELS — The European Commission has done everything in its power to accommodate the concerns of member countries over the EU’s trade deal with the Latin American Mercosur bloc and get it over the finish line, Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič told POLITICO. “I hope we will pass the test this week because we really went to unprecedented lengths to address the concerns which have been presented to us,” Šefčovič said in an interview on Monday.  “Now it’s a matter of credibility, and it’s a matter of being strategic,” he stressed, explaining that the huge trade deal is vital for the European Union at a time of increasingly assertive behavior by China and the United States. “Mercosur very much reflects our ambition to play a strategic role in trade, to confirm that we are the biggest trader on this planet.” The commissioner’s remarks come as time is running short to hold a vote among member countries that would allow Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to fly to Brazil on Dec. 20 for a signing ceremony with the Mercosur countries — Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. “The last miles are always the most difficult,” Šefčovič added. “But I really hope that we can do it this week because I understand the anxiety on the side of our Latin American partners.”  The vote in the Council of the EU, the bloc’s intergovernmental branch, has still to be scheduled. To pass, it would need to win the support of a qualified majority of 15 member countries representing 65 percent of the bloc’s population. It’s not clear whether France — the EU country most strongly opposed to the deal — can muster a blocking minority. If Paris loses, it would be the first time the EU has concluded a big trade deal against the wishes of a major founding member. France, on Sunday evening, called for the vote to be postponed, widening a rift within the bloc over the controversial pact that has been under negotiation for more than 25 years. Several pro-deal countries warn that the holdup risks killing the trade deal, concerned that further stalling it could embolden opposition in the European Parliament or complicate next steps when Paraguay, which is skeptical toward the agreement, takes over the presidency of the Mercosur bloc from current holder Brazil. Asked whether Brussels had a Plan B if the vote does not take place on time, Šefčovič declined to speculate. He instead put the focus on a separate vote on Tuesday in the European Parliament on additional farm market safeguards proposed by the Commission to address French concerns. “There are still expectations on how much we can advance with some of the measures which are not yet approved, particularly in the European Parliament,” he stressed.  “If you look at the safeguard regulation, we never did anything like this before. It’s the first [time] ever. It’s, I would say, very, very far reaching.” 

BRUSSELS — The French government called on Sunday to postpone a crucial vote by countries on the EU-Mercosur trade agreement, widening a rift within the bloc over the controversial pact. “France is asking for the December deadlines to be pushed back so we can keep working and get the legitimate protections our European agriculture needs,” the office of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said Sunday evening. The statement confirmed a POLITICO report on Thursday that Paris was pushing for a delay. It comes within sight of the finish line for the European Union to finally close the agreement with Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay that has been in negotiations for over 25 years and would create a common market of over 700 million people. Denmark, which holds the presidency of the Council of the EU, has vowed to hold the vote in time for European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to fly to Brazil on Dec. 20 to sign the deal. Several countries warn that the holdup risks ultimately killing the trade deal, concerned that further stalling it could embolden opposition in the European Parliament or complicate next steps when Paraguay, which is skeptical toward the agreement, takes over the presidency of the Mercosur bloc from current holder Brazil. Pro-deal countries, including Germany, Sweden and Spain, argue that France’s concerns have already been accommodated, pointing to proposed additional safeguards designed to protect European farmers in the event of a surge in Latin American beef or poultry imports. But with those safeguards still not finalized, France says it still can’t back the deal, wary that it could enrage the country’s politically powerful farming community. Brussels also announced this month it was planning to strengthen its border controls on food, animal and plant imports. “These advances are still incomplete and must be finalized and implemented in an operational, robust and effective manner in order to produce and appreciate their full effects,” Lecornu’s office said. Denmark, which holds the presidency of the Council of the EU, has vowed to hold the vote in time for European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to fly to Brazil on Dec. 20 to sign the deal. | Wagner Meier/Getty Images Despite Denmark’s resolve to hold the vote in time, final talks among EU member countries may not be wrapped up before a summit of European leaders on Thursday and Friday this week. A big farmers’ protest is planned in Brussels on Thursday. The Commission declined to comment.

President Donald Trump promised that a wave of emergency tariffs on nearly every nation would restore “fair” trade and jump-start the economy. Eight months later, half of U.S. imports are avoiding those tariffs. “To all of the foreign presidents, prime ministers, kings, queens, ambassadors, and everyone else who will soon be calling to ask for exemptions from these tariffs,” Trump said in April when he rolled out global tariffs based on the United States’ trade deficits with other countries, “I say, terminate your own tariffs, drop your barriers, don’t manipulate your currencies.” But in the time since the president gave that Rose Garden speech announcing the highest tariffs in a century, enormous holes have appeared. Carveouts for specific products, trade deals with major allies and conflicting import duties have let more than half of all imports escape his sweeping emergency tariffs. Some $1.6 trillion in annual imports are subject to the tariffs, while at least $1.7 trillion are excluded, either because they are duty-free or subject to another tariff, according to a POLITICO analysis based on last year’s import data. The exemptions on thousands of goods could undercut Trump’s effort to protect American manufacturing, shrink the trade deficit and raise new revenue to fund his domestic agenda. In September, the White House exempted hundreds of goods, including critical minerals and industrial materials, totaling nearly $280 billion worth of annual imports. Then in November, the administration exempted $252 billion worth of mostly agricultural imports like beef, coffee and bananas, some of which are not widely produced in the U.S. — just after cost-of-living issues became a major talking point out of Democratic electoral victories — on top of the hundreds of other carveouts. “The administration, for most of this year, spent a lot of time saying tariffs are a way to offload taxes onto foreigners,” said Ed Gresser, a former assistant U.S. trade representative under Democratic and Republican administrations, including Trump’s first term, who now works at the Progressive Policy Institute, a D.C.-based think tank. “I think that becomes very hard to continue arguing when you then say, ‘But we are going to get rid of tariffs on coffee and beef, and that will bring prices down.’ … It’s a big retreat in principle.” The Trump administration has argued that higher tariffs would rebalance the United States’ trade deficits with many of its major trading partners, which Trump blames for the “hollowing out” of U.S. manufacturing in what he evoked as a “national emergency.” Before the Supreme Court, the administration is defending the president’s use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to enact the tariffs, and Trump has said that a potential court-ordered end to the emergency tariffs would be “country-threatening.” In an interview with POLITICO on Monday, Trump said he was open to adding even more exemptions to tariffs. He downplayed the existing carveouts as “very small” and “not a big deal,” and said he plans to pair them with tariff increases elsewhere. Responding to POLITICO’s analysis, White House spokesperson Kush Desai said, “The Trump administration is implementing a nuanced and nimble tariff agenda to address our historic trade deficit and safeguard our national security. This agenda has already resulted in trillions in investments to make and hire in America along with over a dozen trade deals with some of America’s most important trade partners.” To date, the majority of exemptions to the “reciprocal” tariffs — the minimum 10 percent levies on most countries — have been for reasons other than new trade deals, according to POLITICO’s analysis. The White House also pushed back against the notion that November’s cuts were made in an effort to reduce food prices, saying that the exemptions were first outlined in the September order. The U.S. granted subsequent blanket exemptions, regardless of the status of countries’ trade negotiations with the Trump administration, after announcing several trade deals. Following the exemptions on agricultural tariffs, Trump announced on Monday a $12 billion relief aid package for farmers hurt by tariffs and rising production costs. The money will come from an Agriculture Department fund, though the president said it was paid for by revenue from tariffs (by law, Congress would need to approve spending the money that tariffs bring in). In addition to the exemptions from Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, more than $300 billion of imports are also exempted as part of trade deals the administration has negotiated in recent months, including with the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan and more recently, Malaysia, Cambodia and Brazil. The deal with Brazil removed a range of products from a cumulative tariff of 50 percent, making two-thirds of imports from the country free from emergency tariffs. For Canadian and Mexican goods, Trump imposed tariffs under a separate emergency justification over fentanyl trafficking and undocumented migrants. But about half of imports from Mexico and nearly 40 percent of those from Canada will not face tariffs because of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement that Trump negotiated in his first term. Last year, importers claimed USMCA exemptions on $405 billion in goods; that value is expected to increase, given that the two countries are facing high tariffs for the first time in several years. The Trump administration has also exempted several products — including autos, steel and aluminum — from the emergency reciprocal tariffs because they already face duties under Section 232 of the U.S. Trade Expansion Act of 1962. The imports covered by those tariffs could total up to $900 billion annually, some of which may also be exempt under USMCA. The White House is considering using the law to justify further tariffs on pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and several other industries. For now, the emergency tariffs remain in place as the Supreme Court weighs whether Trump exceeded his authority in imposing them. In May, the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that Trump’s use of emergency authority was unlawful — a decision the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld in August. During oral arguments on Nov. 5, several Supreme Court justices expressed skepticism that the emergency statute authorizes a president to levy tariffs, a power constitutionally assigned to Congress. As the rates of tariffs and their subsequent exemptions are quickly added and amended, businesses are struggling to keep pace, said Sabine Altendorf, an economist with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. “When there’s uncertainty and rapid changes, it makes operations very difficult,” Altendorf said. “Especially for agricultural products where growing times and planting times are involved, it’s very important for market actors to be able to plan ahead.” ABOUT THE DATA Trump’s trade policy is not a straightforward, one-size-fits-all approach, despite the blanket tariffs on most countries of the world. POLITICO used 2024 import data to estimate the value of goods subject to each tariff, accounting for the stacking rules outlined below. Under Trump’s current system, some tariffs can “stack” — meaning a product can face more than one tariff if multiple trade actions apply to it. Section 232 tariffs cover automobiles, automobile parts, products made of steel and aluminum, copper and lumber — and are applied in that order of priority. Section 232 tariffs as a whole then take priority over other emergency tariffs. We applied this stacking priority order to all imports to ensure no double-counting. To calculate the total exclusions, we did not count the value of products containing steel, aluminum and copper, since the tariff would apply only to the known portion of the import’s metal contentand not the total import value of all products containing them. This makes the $1.7 trillion in exclusions a minimum estimate. Goods from Canada and Mexico imported under USMCA face no tariffs. Some of these products fall under a Section 232 category and may be charged applicable tariffs for the non-USMCA portion of the import. To claim exemptions under USMCA, importers must indicate the percentage of the product made or assembled in Canada or Mexico. Because detailed commodity-level data on which imports qualify for USMCA is not available, POLITICO’s analysis estimated the amount that would be excluded from tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports by applying each country’s USMCA-exempt share to its non-Section 232 import value. For instance, 38 percent of Canada’s total imports qualified for USMCA. The non-Section 232 imports from Canada totaled around $320 billion, so we used only $121 billion towards our calculation of total goods excluded from Trump’s emergency tariffs. Exemptions from trade deals included those with the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, Brazil, Cambodia and Malaysia. They do not include “frameworks” for agreements announced by the administration. Exemptions were calculated in chronological order of when the deals were announced. Imports already exempted in previous orders were not counted again, even if they appeared on subsequent exemption lists.

BRUSSELS — Denmark is holding the line and pressing ahead with plans to schedule a crucial vote of EU ambassadors on the EU-Mercosur trade deal next week, in a tug-of-war splitting countries across the bloc. “In the planning of the Danish presidency, the intention is to have the vote on the Mercosur agreement next week to enable the Commission President to sign the agreement in Brazil on Dec. 20,” an official with the Danish presidency of the Council of the EU told POLITICO. This is the first official confirmation from Copenhagen that it will go ahead with scheduling the vote over the deal with the Latin American countries in the coming days, despite warnings from France, Poland and Italy that the texts as they stand would not garner their support.  This risks leaving the Danish presidency of the Council short of the supermajority needed to get the deal over the line. Under EU rules, this would require the support of a “qualified” majority of EU member countries — meaning 15 of the bloc’s 27 members representing 65 percent of its population. The outcome of the vote will determine whether European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen can fly, as is now planned, to Brazil on Dec. 20 for a signing ceremony with her Mercosur counterparts. France however has been playing for time in an effort to delay its approval of the accord, which has been more than 25 years in the making — a strategy several diplomats warn could ultimately kill the trade deal.  They cite fears that further stalling could embolden opposition in the European Parliament or complicate the next steps when Paraguay, which is more skeptical of the agreement, takes over the presidency of the Mercosur bloc. “If we can’t agree on Mercosur, we don’t need to talk about European sovereignty anymore. We will make ourselves geopolitically irrelevant,” said a senior EU diplomat. European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, are expected to descend on Brussels on Thursday for a high-stakes EU summit. While not formally on the agenda, the trade deal with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay is expected to loom large. A farmers demonstration is also expected in Brussels on the same day.  Countries backing the deal, including Germany and Sweden, argue that France has already been accommodated, pointing to proposed additional safeguards designed to protect European farmers in the event of a surge in Latin American beef or poultry imports. The instrument, which still requires validation by EU institutions, was a proposal from the Commission to placate Poland and France, whose influential farming constituencies worry they would be undercut by Latin American beef or poultry.  The texts submitted for the upcoming vote were published last week and include a temporary strengthened safeguard, committing to closely monitor market disruptions — one of the key conditions for Paris to back the deal.

BRUSSELS — France is playing for time over a crucial vote on the EU’s trade mega deal with the Latin American Mercosur bloc, three EU diplomats told POLITICO, in a strategy that one warned could kill the long-awaited accord.  With U.S. President Donald Trump having slammed Europe as “weak” and “decaying,” the European Commission is racing to prove otherwise — by rushing before Christmas to lock in the trade deal with Mercosur, which groups Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Now, just over a week before Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hopes to fly to Brazil for a signing ceremony, France is raising the alarm that its longstanding demands haven’t been met. Paris warns it won’t be able to support the pact in a looming vote by member countries, suggesting it be held in January instead, according to the diplomats.  That could leave the Danish presidency of the Council short of the supermajority needed to get the deal over the line. Under EU rules this would require the support of a “qualified” majority of EU member countries — meaning 15 of the bloc’s 27 member countries representing 65 percent of its population. The French government reiterated on Thursday that it wasn’t satisfied with the agreement and that its final decision will depend on the progress made toward its demands.  “France is a big agricultural power, we defend our agricultural interests very firmly in these negotiations … We continue working on this agreement, which is not acceptable as it stands on the day I am speaking to you,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Pascal Confavreux told POLITICO. Confavreux declined to say when asked whether France was pushing to delay the vote to January. A senior EU diplomat warned that the long-awaited trade deal — which has been a quarter century in the making and would create a common market of over 700 million people — would not survive another delay.  “If [von der Leyen] does not sign it, if we do not allow her to sign it on the 20th, it’s dead,” said the diplomat, who was granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter. “And then we really need to think about whether that’s where we want to be in the world.”  COALITION OF THE UNWILLING Ireland, which remains one of the more skeptical countries due to its large farming constituency, said Thursday it was “working with like-minded countries” on its position on the agreement — referring to a so-called coalition of the unwilling that has varied over time and included countries like Poland and Austria.  “The key question now is whether a blocking minority still exists. And I think the jury is still a little out on that,” said Deputy Prime Minister Simon Harris. The stalling tactics will infuriate pro-Mercosur nations led by Germany, which argue that the French have already been accommodated, including by the proposal of additional safeguards to protect European farmers in case Latin American beef or poultry flood EU markets.  Paris is adamant that its three core conditions — the inclusion of “mirror clauses,” stronger sanitary controls, and the agricultural safeguards — have still not been met.  A separate plenary vote still needs to be held in the European Parliament this coming Tuesday on the farm safeguards. The chamber’s trade committee last week approved compromise amendments to tighten the protections. Yet a late flood of new amendments could complicate matters just two days before EU leaders are due to hold their year-end summit in Brussels. A diplomat from one Mercosur country said the signing date was still on: “We are still talking about Dec. 20.”  “Nobody has abandoned that yet,” said the diplomat, who was also granted anonymity to discuss the extremely sensitive matter.  Bloomberg first reported on the delay.  Giovanna Faggionato and Kathryn Carlson contributed to this report. 

Brussels’ battle over whether plant-based foods can be sold as “veggie burgers” and “vegan sausages” ended the year in stalemate on Wednesday, after talks between EU countries and the European Parliament collapsed without a deal. French centre-right lawmaker Céline Imart, a grain farmer from southern France and the architect of the naming ban, arrived determined to lock in tough restrictions on plant-based labels, according to three people involved. Her proposal, dismissed as “unnecessary” inside her own political family, was tucked inside a largely unrelated reform of the EU’s farm-market rulebook. It slipped through weeks of talks untouched and unmentioned, only reemerging in the final stretch — by which point even Paul McCartney had asked Brussels to let veggie burgers be. The Wednesday meeting quickly veered off course. Officials said Imart moved to reopen elements of the text that negotiators believed had already wrapped up, including sensitive rules for powerful farm cooperatives. She then sketched out several possible fallbacks on dairy contracts — a politically charged issue for many countries — but without settling on a clear line the rest of the Parliament team could rally behind. “And then she introduced new terms out of nowhere,” one Parliament official said, after Imart proposed adding “liver” and “ham” to the list of protected meat names for the first time. “It was very messy,” another Parliament official said. EU countries, led in the talks by Denmark, said they simply had no mandate to move — not on the naming rules and not on dairy contracts. With neither side giving ground, the discussions ground to a halt. “We did not succeed in reaching an agreement,” Danish Agriculture Minister Jacob Jensen said. Imart insisted that the gap could still be bridged. Dairy contracts and meat-related names “still call for further clarification,” she said in a written statement, arguing that “tangible progress” had been made and that “the prospect of an agreement remains close,” with negotiations due to resume under Cyprus in January. “We did not succeed in reaching an agreement,” Danish Agriculture Minister Jacob Jensen said. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images) Dutch Green lawmaker Anna Strolenberg, who was in the room, said she was relieved: “It’s frustrating that we keep losing time on a veggie burger ban — but at least it wasn’t traded for weaker contracts [for dairy farmers].” For now, that means veggie burgers, vegan nuggets and other alternative-protein products will keep their familiar names — at least until Cyprus picks up the file in the New Year and Brussels’ oddest food fight resumes.

Paul McCartney has joined forces with U.K. MPs who are urging Brussels to scrap any plans to ban the use of meat-related names such as “burger” and “sausage” for plant-based products. The proposed EU ban, if passed into law, would prohibit food producers from using designations such as “veggie burger” or “vegan sausage” for plant-based and lab-grown dishes. “To stipulate that burgers and sausages are ‘plant-based,’ ‘vegetarian’ or ‘vegan’ should be enough for sensible people to understand what they are eating,” the former Beatles star, who became a vegetarian in 1975, told The Times of London. “This also encourages attitudes essential to our health and that of the planet.” The proposed EU ban “could increase confusion” and “undermine economic growth, sustainability goals, and the EU’s own simplification agenda,” eight British MPs, including Jeremy Corbyn, wrote in a letter to Brussels. The Times reported the contents of the letter Saturday evening. The missive includes the support of the McCartney family, which owns a business selling vegetarian food and recipes. The looming ban stems from an amendment that French center-right MEP Céline Imart introduced into legislation that aims to reform EU farming rules. These proposed reforms include how farmers sign contracts with buyers alongside other technical provisions. The bill is now subject to legislative negotiations with the Council of the EU, which represents EU governments.  The proposed rules will become law if and when MEPs and the Council agree on a final version of the legislation to become EU law. MPs in the U.K. fear that the ban, if it survives, would also impact British supermarkets, as markets and companies across the continent are so closely intertwined. Imart’s burger-busting tweaks were supposed to be a gesture of respect toward the French farmers that she represents — but they have divided MEPs within her own European People’s Party. “A steak is not just a shape,” Imart told POLITICO in an interview last month. “People have eaten meat since the Neolithic. These names carry heritage. They belong to farmers.” Limiting labels for vegetarian producers will also help shoppers understand the difference between a real burger and a plant-based patty, according to Imart, despite years of EU surveys showing consumers largely understand the difference. U.K. MPs also cite research in their letter, stating that European shoppers “overwhelmingly understand and support current naming conventions” such as “veggie burger.”

Heidi Kingstone is a journalist and author covering human rights issues, conflict and politics. Her most recent book is “Genocide: Personal Stories, Big Questions.” Slavery is alive and thriving, and it’s wrapped inside shiny chocolate bars that promise to be “fair trade,” “child-labor free” and “sustainable.” In West Africa, which produces more than 60 percent of the world’s cocoa, over 1.5 million children still work under hazardous conditions. Kids, some as young as five, use machetes to crack pods open in their hands, carry loads that weigh more than they do and spray toxic pesticides without protection. Meanwhile, of the roughly 2 million metric tons of cocoa the Ivory Coast produces each year, between 20 percent and 30 percent is grown illegally in protected forests. And satellite data from Global Forest Watch shows an increase in deforestation across key cocoa-growing regions as farmers, desperate for income, push deeper into forest reserves. The bitter truth is that despite decades of pledges, certification schemes and packaging glowing with virtue — of forests saved, farmers empowered and consciences soothed — most chocolate companies have failed to eradicate exploitation from their supply chains. Today, many cocoa farmers in the Ivory Coast and Ghana still earn less than a dollar a day, well below the poverty line. According to a 2024 report by the International Cocoa Initiative, the average farmer earns only 40 percent of a living wage. Put starkly, as the global chocolate market swells close to a $150 billion a year in 2025, the average farmer now receives less than 6 percent of the value of a single chocolate bar, whereas in the 1970s they received more than 50 percent. Then there’s the use of child labor, which is essentially woven into the fabric of this economy, where we have been sold the illusion of progress. From the 2001 Harkin-Engel Protocol — a voluntary agreement to end child labor by the world’s chocolate giants — to today’s glossy environmental, social and governance (ESG) reports, every initiative has promised progress and delivered delay. In 2007, the industry quietly redefined “public certification,” shifting it from a commitment to consumer labeling to a vague pledge to compile statistics on labor conditions. It missed the original 2010 deadline to eliminate child labor, as well as a new target to reduce it by 70 percent by 2020. And that year, a study by the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center found that hazardous child labor in cocoa production increased from 2008 to 2019. “We covered a story about a ship carrying trafficked children,” recalled journalist Humphrey Hawksley, who first exposed the issue in the BBC documentary called Slavery: A Global Investigation. “The chocolate companies refused to comment and spoke as one industry. That was their rule. Even now, none of them is slave-free,” he added. As it stands, many of the more than 1.5 million West African children working in cocoa production are trafficked from neighboring Burkina Faso and Mali. Traffickers lure them with false promises or outright abduction, offering children as young as 10 either bicycles or small sums to travel to the Ivory Coast. There, they are sold to farmers for as little as $34 each. And once on these farms, they are trapped. They work up to 14 hours a day, sleep in windowless sheds with no clean water or toilets, and most never see the inside of a classroom. Last but not least, we come to deforestation: Since its independence, more than 90 percent of the Ivory Coast’s forests have disappeared due to cocoa farming. In 2024, deforestation accelerated despite corporate commitments to halt it by 2025, as declining soil fertility and stagnant prices pushed farmers farther into the forest to plant new cocoa trees. But as Reuters Correspondent for West and Central Africa Ange Aboa described them, such labels are “the biggest scam of the century!” | Lena Klimkeit/Picture Alliance via Getty Images Certification labels like “Rainforest Alliance” and “Fairtrade” are supposed to prevent this. But as Reuters Correspondent for West and Central Africa Ange Aboa described them, such labels are “the biggest scam of the century!” Complicit in all of this are the financiers and investors who profit. For example, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is the world’s largest investor, and Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) is a shareholder in 9,000 corporations, including Nestlé, Mondelez, Hershey, Barry Callebaut and Lindt — all part of the direct chocolate cluster. NBIM also has shares in McDonald’s, Starbucks, Unilever, the Dunkin’ parent company and Tim Hortons — the indirect high-volume buyer cluster. “The richest families in cocoa — the Marses, the Ferreros, the Cargills, the Jacobs — are billionaires thanks to the exploitation of the poorest children on earth,” said journalist and human rights campaigner Fernando Morales-de la Cruz, the founder of Cacao for Change. “And countries like Norway, which claim to be ethical, profit from slavery and child labor.” The problem is, few are asking who picks the cocoa. And though the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, which was adopted last year, requires large companies to address human rights and environmental abuses in their supply chains, critics say the directive’s weaknesses, loopholes, and delayed enforcement will blunt its impact. However, all of this could still be fixed. Currently, a metric ton of cocoa sells for about $5,000 on world markets, but Morales-de la Cruz estimates that a fair farm-gate price would be around $7,500 per metric ton. To that end, he advocates for binding international trade standards that enforce living incomes and transparent pricing, modeled on the World Trade Organization’s compliance mechanisms. “Human rights should be as binding in trade as tariffs,” he insisted. The solution isn’t to buy more “ethical” bars but to demand accountability and support legislation that makes exploitation unprofitable. “We can’t shop our way to justice,” he said. So, as the trees in the Ivory Coast’s forests fall, the profits in Europe and North America continue to soar. And two decades after the industry vowed to end child labor, the cocoa supply chain remains one of the world’s most exploitative and least accountable. Moreover, the European Parliament’s vote on the Omnibus simplification package last month laid bare the corporate control and moral blindness still present in EU policymaking, all behind talk of “cutting red tape.” “Yet Europe’s media and EU-funded NGOs stay silent, talking of competitiveness and green transitions, while ignoring the children who harvest its cocoa, coffee and cotton,” said Morales-de la Cruz. “Europe cannot claim to defend human rights while profiting from exploitation.” However, until the industry pays a fair price and governments enforce real accountability, every bar of chocolate remains an unpaid moral debt.

BRUSSELS — The European Union has approved a proposal to curb trade benefits for developing countries that refuse to take back migrants whose stay in the bloc has been denied. Low-tariff access to the EU’s market will be reviewed in the context of “the readmission of that country’s own nationals” who have been identified as “irregular migrants to the Union,” a document seen by POLITICO confirms. Negotiators from the Council of the EU, the European Parliament and the European Commission agreed to the draft text late Monday night. The push to link trade measures to migration policy comes amid major advances by far-right parties across Europe and calls for governments to get tougher on enforcing returns. Currently, only a small share of those eligible for removal from the EU are actually deported — many because their home countries refuse to cooperate. “In case of serious and systematic shortcomings related to the international obligation to readmit a beneficiary country’s own nationals, the preferential arrangements … may be withdrawn temporarily, in respect of all or of certain products originating in that beneficiary country, where the Commission considers that an insufficient level of cooperation on readmission persists,” it reads. The readmission clause will be applied with more or less stringent conditions depending on a country’s development level, the document also says. The measures, which would only be invoked after dialog with countries, are being included in an overhaul of the so-called Generalized Scheme of Preferences, a 50-year old program that enables poorer countries to export goods to EU countries at lower tariff rates. The review of the program, which has been under negotiation for over three years, is designed to help these nations build their economies and is tied to the implementation of human rights, labor and environmental reforms. However, the issue of cheap rice imports from Pakistan or Bangladesh threatened to collapse the talks before the eventual agreement on Monday, amid concerns from EU producers like Spain and Italy that want to ensure their own farmers are not outcompeted. EU countries have long been considering the idea of using trade, development and visa policies to ensure third countries agree to take back failed migrants, amid growing public discontent that has driven victories for far-right parties at the ballot box. However, the proposals had faced opposition from the Parliament, as well as the Commission and a handful of capitals that feared this would upend relations with key partner countries. Denmark’s center-left government set its sights on migration as a key issue for its presidency, which ends on Dec. 31. Justice and home affairs ministers will meet next Monday to discuss ways to ensure more people leave the EU after their applications to stay are rejected, including through so-called return hubs in third countries.

BRUSSELS — A jolt of optimism that Brussels and the Latin American countries of Mercosur can finally seal their mammoth trade deal this year has given way to trepidation that everything could fall apart just before the finish line. The biggest hurdle that remains is approving a workaround to protect European farm markets in the event of a sudden influx of produce from the Mercosur bloc, which groups Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The safeguards, calibrated in consultation with Paris and presented in early October, seemed enough at first to reassure skeptical politicians and farmers in France and Poland. But the mood in the European Parliament and in some capitals has turned volatile. And with the clock ticking down to a tentative Dec. 20 date for European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to fly to Brazil for a formal signing ceremony, the path to that successful outcome is narrowing. Brazil’s ambassador to the EU, Pedro Miguel da Costa e Silva, is bullish that the agreement, which has been 25 years in the making and would create a free-trade area spanning nearly 800 million people, can still be done. “What will happen will be exactly what happened with other agreements that the EU negotiated with other countries: In the beginning there was a lot of backlash, but then suddenly people discovered that it was a mutual benefit equation,” da Costa e Silva said at an event in Brussels last week. To close the deal in time, everything needs to go right. European lawmakers must first approve the additional safeguards, after which the Council, the intergovernmental branch of the EU, then needs to sign off on the broader deal. Finally, the Commission must sign it. PARLIAMENT UNCHAINED The Parliament has witnessed chaotic scenes in recent days as pro-Mercosur lawmakers tried, and failed, to fast-track a vote to approve the safeguards. Although seemingly only a technical measure, the safeguard text is a crucial political condition for President Emmanuel Macron of France — the EU’s second-largest country — to back the overall agreement.  The Council has concluded its work on the safeguards, and is waiting for the Parliament to move forward.  The text will now tentatively be put to a committee vote in the Parliament on Dec. 8, followed by a Dec. 16 vote in the plenary — just four days before the planned signing ceremony.   Although seemingly only a technical measure, the safeguard text is a crucial political condition for President Emmanuel Macron of France. | Thierry Nectoux/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images “We have been negotiating this agreement for 25 years and now we are being told that we must act quickly,” said Céline Imart, a French MEP from the European People’s Party group and a farmer herself.  Adding to the headaches, over 140 lawmakers have called for a resolution seeking a legal opinion from the Court of Justice of the European Union on whether the overall deal is compatible with the European treaties.  That would paralyze the Parliament’s approval of the safeguards until the court — known for its lengthy procedures — rules on the issue. Parliament President Roberta Metsola rejected the request on the grounds that the Council had not yet weighed in on the agreement. Those lawmakers have criticized the decision and are now pushing for further explanations from the Parliament’s own legal service on whether Metsola overstepped her powers.  THE HOME STRETCH With U.S. President Donald Trump breathing down Europe’s neck, fence-sitters like the Netherlands and Italy have come to terms with the fact that the deal would offer a welcome boost for the bloc’s struggling exporters. Even Macron struck a conciliatory tone after meeting Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in early November.  Still, in the Council, where a qualified majority of EU countries is needed to approve the deal, the battle is not yet won. Poland — one of the countries Brussels had hoped to soothe with the new safeguard rules — this week restated its opposition. “Our position is clearly defined: We will vote against, despite the agreement on safeguards that has been reached,” Michal Baranowski, Poland’s undersecretary of state in the Ministry of Economic Development, said Monday.  Confusion at the highest level hasn’t helped either.  At the last European leaders’ summit in October, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz prematurely announced that EU leaders had unanimously backed the contentious deal.  That forced European Council President António Costa to clarify that he had merely sought to assess next steps with European leaders. France followed up by seeking fresh reassurances that the European market would be protected from agricultural products that don’t meet the bloc’s standards. If the approval process hasn’t already gone off track by then, the EU leaders’ summit on Dec. 18-19 in Brussels could still deliver some last-minute drama before von der Leyen can catch that flight to Brazil. “Ursula von der Leyen already has her tickets to Brazil. It is up to us to ensure that she only goes there for a holiday,” added Imart, the French MEP.